This week we are talking about FOOD. Yes, food! So to get started, I am going to share with you my #1 favorite and most helpful tool (a.k.a. skill) when it comes to food. I call it Don’t Waste Your Calories.

Initially you may be thinking that I’m meaning you need to count your calories and stay within a very specific calorie intake. Well, not so fast. Not wasting your calories, to me, is actually only eating foods that 1) Absolutely love OR 2)Benefit me nutritionally–that’s right, healthy foods!

You may be asking, “People only eat food they love, don’t they?” (Unless, of course, they are on a diet.)  Well that’s what I used to think! But once I started asking myself the following questions after I put something in my mouth, my perspective changed a bit: Do I really LOVE how this tastes? Do I just like it? Or am I just eating it because it is available?

Let me give you some examples of ways I used to waste my calories:
-Eating leftover food from my kids’ plates as I cleaned off the table.
-Grabbing a few cold french fries as I get up from the table at a restaurant.
-Pizza crust (I never really realized how much I don’t LOVE pizza crust!)
-Random candy I found in the house or that kids left on the counter.
-An unopened bag of chips while I was cooking dinner.
-I am not hungry, but I head to the kitchen to try to “find” something that sounds good.
-Eating food that is easily available (food that is right there), not because I actually love it.

I have actually gone so far as to spit stuff out if I taste it and realize I didn’t love it. For example, I might take a bite of a cookie and notice it is stale as soon as it hits my tongue. There is no need to consume 50 calories of a stale cookie–that would be 50 calories I could use on something I actually enjoy!–so in that instance I would usually spit it out in a napkin and throw it away. 50 calories here and there could really add up. Over the course of a month, look how many calories you could avoid simply by cutting out the foods that don’t meet your love expectations!

Obviously there will be situations where you need to eat certain foods that you may not love, such as at a dinner party when it would be rude to spit it out.  But majority of the time you have the ability to stop or throw away what you are eating if it isn’t meeting your qualifications 😉 And remember, only you can decide what your taste buds desire the most.

So there you have it! To utilize the Don’t Waste Your Calories tool, make every calorie count by either making sure you love how it tastes or it provides nutrition for your body (or adjust this tool by defining it in a way that gives you peace!).

Posse Discussion:

Part 1: Name one food item that you have been wasting your calories on because you mindlessly eat it.
Part 2: If you were to eliminate this food item, what #peace would it give you (Use Peace Chart below)? If completely eliminating this item brings no peace, what can you do that would give you peace?

Click Here for Day 5!