Volume Eating

At my Weight Watcher meeting last night, I met a bunch of friendly new members. They all seemed to be curious about what I was eating for breakfasts and lunches. I told them I usually stick to oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch. They looked at me like I was some sort of freak, and laughingly replied that they could never exist on such light fare.

Of course, little did they know how huge my meals actually are.

I tried to explain. My oatmeal meal is not a skimpy packet of oatmeal with some hot water. My salad is not the sad small container of iceburg lettuce with a few cherry tomatoes. For lunch these days, I've been having a gigantic (unfortunately expensive) salad from the salad bar at the supermarket, containing the following: lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, black olives, a hard boiled egg, a spoonful of mixed beans, a spoonful of grilled chicken, and a spoonful of blue cheese. I top the whole thing off with FF Honey Mustard dressing. Needless to say, it's not a small meal. In fact, sometimes I get a little self conscious about just how much food I'm consuming as I tear through my salad on my lunch break. Likewise, my typical oatmeal breakfast involves a packet of oatmeal and a huge banana. Sometimes I add peanut butter. It's literally too big for a normal size bowl.

This is all an explanation for the food mishap that occurred last night. After my WWer meeting, I went out with a friend for Thai food. Unfortunately, by the time she picked me up it was 8pm and I was starving. We arrived at the restaurant and promptly ordered fried spring rolls and two(!) orders of Pad See Ew. And I ate an entire large spring roll and nearly my whole plate of Pad See Ew before I realized that I was sickeningly full.

See, the thing is--my head is bigger than my stomach. I think I want huge plates of food, so I gobble them down before my stomach has a chance to say, "Whoa, I'm full." And that is why it works so well for me to eat large portions of low point food because I satisfy my head AND my stomach. After all, it never hurts to eat a large amount of fruits and veggies. Of course, perhaps the better solution would be to train my head to desire "reasonable" portions of food. But that might be reaching for the stars, haha.

So anyway, I'm a little annoyed that I ate so much yesterday but today is a new day =) I actually don't have any plans (as of yet) for the weekend. I'm looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing a bit. Does anyone else struggle with volume eating? Have you developed any strategies for dealing with it?