Food is so fun and exciting! It makes me happy!

I was wondering if anyone else has this problem.  I am not an emotional over-eater.  I do not gain tons of weight when I have been very sad, or use food to make me feel loved or anything like that.  Food makes me happy, but in a very different way.

I love taste, and texture and the pairings thereof.  I love trying new flavor combinations and having things prepared in ways I've never experienced.  Smelling, tasting, and even making food, makes me smile.  It makes me happy like music or art or movies or good books make people happy and I don't want to give that up!  I know that eating healthy doesn't have to mean eating boring, but with everyone touting "calories in < calories out = weight loss" all I can think of is the fewer calories I can eat, the fewer tasty things I can fit into a day.  Even if you only eat veggies, you will eventually hit your calorie goal and have to stop eating for the day (of course I'm thinking you'd be pretty darn full by then).

So I guess I'm just looking to hear some stories about people who think food is fantastic.  I'm not talking about people who eat huge Mickey D's burgers everyday, more like people who just can't resist ordering the 10 oz steak because it is dry aged and rubbed with kona coffee and finished with a carmellized onion relish.  What do you do?  Just ensure you work out enough to kill all those delicious calories?  Do you make sure you only eat half of that big steak and bring the other half home (even though you know it won't be as good reheated)?  I've heard of the cheat day, but I don't think eating salads all week only to indulge in a butter poached lobster on the weekend is going to work for me.

How do you cope with your undying love of epicurean delights?

portion control =]

and keeping the "special" foods special - think of it this way: if you have them everyday, they're not as special but just common.

I love food too! (When I'm not busy hating it, i'll admit the relationship is a messy one at times)

I second the portion control. For instance, with the example of steak--many restaurant steaks come in over 10 oz. portions but a serving of meat that would get you about 3 servings of protein(which is a fairly good dinner size) is only 3 or 4 oz(not taking into account for things like I don't know how hungry you are, how active, your age, etc.) So what about savoring each bite, but eat a reasonable portion? Of course, everyone eats more of something they really like once in awhile and as long as you're not eating way past your physical comfort level each night you're probably doing alright.

Also, since you're such a food lover I'd suggest trying new and exotic fruits and veggies and 'lean' meals too.

Last, it's boring to count calories all day and as much as we are eating for survival/fuel we certainly should eat for enjoyment as well! But if that enjoyment is overshadowed by being overweight, in poor health or self-consiousness than you can make changes. I'd suggest a book--I can't remember the title of course, something about intuitive eating, oh I think thats it--by Evelyn Tribole. It's about not counting calories but enjoying foods the way your particular body and mind are meant to. It's really helped me quite a bit and since it's all about listening to your inner signals of fullness etc. and getting enjoyment out of food you might really like it.

yikes i guess that ran long--sorry! hope it helped a little at least!

I love your writing, vocabulary and style.

Sorry I don't have an answer for your question though, as I am almost completely opposite of you. I loved food, or thought I did, tried to use it to solve all my problems, developed a horrible binge-eating disorder, and now I struggle very hard not to hate food... it's a long story.

I freely admit to being a 'foodie'... someone that loves different foods, cooking them, tasting them etc.  I don't think appreciating food is a bad thing, but it's really easy to get fat if you develop your hobby too lavishly!  You should Google 'Graham Kerr'... he was a celebrity chef in the seventies and he specialised in the rich food of the time - everything dripping in cream & butter or wrapped in pastry, you know the kind of thing.  He was OK but his wife had a heart-attack...  all of that rich food nearly killed her.  Now he's devoted to healthy foods but with a gourmet twist.  He talks about food that's good for the 'neck up' (pleasure) and food that's good for the 'neck down' (nutrition) ... and tries to pair the two.

That's how I try to manage things. Day to day I aim to get lots of pleasure from good quality, wholesome foods simply prepared with lots of natural flavours.  My new philosophy is 'spend more, eat less'.  Because my basic diet is quite simple (and often vegetarian) it means that when I do splash out a little I can appreciate relatively small amounts of something fantastic.  I'd never eat a 10oz steak... that's just greedy, I'm afraid ... but a fabulous 4oz fillet of grass-reared, organic beef is melt-in-the-mouth worth every bite.

This little recipe of mine for 'Rich Chocolate Liqueur Mousse' illustrates what I mean.  It's not what you call 'healthy' but the flavour is so rich that a small pot is very satisfying and is only 125cals.  I'd rather have one little serving of this than a big plateful of some crappy low-cal 'diet' creation.

I want to write loads here, but I'm late so I will just say: I buy lots of very small very adorably cute japanese china and bowls and plates with trees and kimonos on them and cook extravagantly and use spices and herbs for flavour instead of oil and eat small amounts of loads of endlessly wonderful stuff.

Will be back though! Could talk for hours about this!

me too!

i love eating out

and eating yummy exotic foods

and i always watch the food channel... have you ever seen the show 'top chef'

there is a judge on there named Padma Lakshmi

she is a model and probably weighs 130lbs at 6"0

she is sooooo thin, but she eats a lot of rich [not diet] food

and she says her trick is that she spends half her life in the kitchen and half her life in the gym

here's an interesting article about her you should check out

http://joshsgarage.typepad.com/articles/2009/ 01/how-padma-from-top-chef-stays-supermodel-f it.html

so... unfortunately there is no easy way to eat what you want, you have to balance it out with exercising, or portion control

i think one of the most important things about being healthy is really enjoying your food, to put food in your mouth and taste every flavor that was put into it. If you do this with a mcdonalds burger you'llnotice a uniform texture that basically tastes like salt and sugar. but with real food it can be a real experience. so i don't think you should ever deprive yourself of that... also gourmet restaurants tend to have really small portions vs. like eating a steak at outback steakhouse, and i would guess a meal would be anywhere from 800-1500 calories... now if you burn off 500 calories, at the high end the meal would only be 1000 calories... leaving you another couple hundred calories to split throughout the day

it gets complicated but unfortunately it does come back to science.. a calorie in = a calorie out

but DONT deprive yourself, especially of GOOD food

Thanks, everyone, for all the responses.  I am glad to know I'm not the only one on a calorie conscious website that has the overwhelming desire to really enjoy the stuff I put into my mouth.  I admit that my food related desires don't ALWAYS steer me in the direction of the best nutrition, but sometimes I feel like a sincere love of food can actually help you diet.  Sometimes!  Like with the chocolate concoction gi-jane suggested; I would much rather eat a square of really good quality dark chocolate than eat a deep fried twinkie because I'm able to eat the chocolate slowly and appreciate everything about it.  Also I find that sometimes high fat high sugar things make my mouth feel smothered so that it can't really enjoy the flavor.  Starbucks flavored lattes do this to me.  I think they are going to taste good, and then I can't even finish the cup because all of my insides feel coated with a thick film that keeps me from enjoying anything else.

Other times, however, I hear the words "brie en croute" or "baked stuffed shrimp" and I know I'm going to have a hard time not finishing every morsel on the plate!  I guess this is where willpower comes in.  Perhaps, too, I should learn to make more "gourmet" food at home so that I can control the portions ahead of time thereby avoiding the guilty feeling that comes when I leave leftovers knowing the taste will dwindle when reheated.

@PurpleOrchid - Thank you so much for the compliment!  I work in a very technical field (engineering) so it is always nice to know that I can still communicate using words as opposed to equations and graphs.