How do I stop eating so much BREAD?

I need somone's advice. ANY advice will do.

I am currently studying abroad in Argentina. And while the food is really great here, I have picked up some pretty horrible eating habits. Mainly, that I eat an absolutely absurd amount of bread. My host mom always has a fresh supply of really good french/Italian bread on hand and we eat it--in excess-- with literally every meal. Not only that, but we eat lunch around 1:00 and don't eat dinner until about 9:30 or 10 (don't ask me why--that's just the culture here) which means that I am expected to go 8 hours without eating a meal! Of course as I have learned from Calorie Count, it is important to eat something small to keep my metabolism going. I try to just eat fruit or have a couple crackers, but my problem is, I get an INTENSE craving for bread around 6 or 7 o'clock that literally takes over my mind. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I just can't help it! Nothing else can settle me down except carbohydrates. And often during meals I keep eating bread after the meal is over, even if I'm full, because it's sitting there in front of me, and we're sitting around the table chatting after. When I look at my Calorie Count for the day, way too many of my calories are coming from this bread that has hardly any nutritional value as it white.

So basically, I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions...first of all, on how to mentally get over my bread cravings, and second of all, what the best thing to do is with such a strange eating schedule (the whole dinner at 10:00 thing).

There's nothing wrong with bread.  The intense craving you describe is because the peculiar Spanish habit of eating supper very late isn't your normal eating pattern.   Do they keep siesta?.... that's why supper was traditionally so late.   Eating some fruit is a good move.... eating some bread isn't a problem either.  Maybe a slice of toast with some peanut butter on it would put you on?... and then you wouldn't be so famished at supper-time that you need to overeat.

Dear skelsy123,

I absolutely love bread, and have the same issues, so your question hit a chord with me. But when you asked for something you could do *mentally* to resist this particular temptation, it made me think of a strategy I read years ago about how naturally slender people automatically know what to do in considering what to eat or not eat. THANK YOU for reminding me of this! I went to the bookshelf looking for the book that I haven’t cracked for almost 10 years. I found the passage!

People like me (and perhaps you) don’t have the strategy laid out here. When I’m hungry and I see food, I eat it. That’s my very simple strategy. But it’s not how naturally slender people do it. (There have been studies).

This is how they do it. For them, it’s instantaneous and is second nature, so they don’t realize they’re even using the strategy. But, it can be learned. And if we consciously use it repeatedly, it will become second nature to us too. I typed it out for you (and me) from the book “Heart of the Mind” by Connierae Andreas. ( I’m excited to really try it this time.) If you try it too, please drop me an email to let me know if it works for you. It would be great to have someone try it with me.  ( sm_fitzgerald@yahoo.com )

The Naturally Slender Eating Strategy

1. First, something makes me think of food. This might be seeing that it’s time for lunch, hearing someone mention lunch, feeling hunger, or seeing food.
2. I check *how my stomach feels now*.
3. I ask myself, “What would feel good in my stomach?”
4. I visualize a possible portion of a food: a sandwich, a bowl of soup, a dinner salad, etc.
5. I imagine eating this food. I think of the taste of this food, and then feel the food slipping into my stomach, and get a feeling of how this amount of this food *will feel in my stomach over time if I eat it now*.
6. If I like this feeling better than how I will feel if I eat no food at all, I keep this food item as one possibility. If not, I discard it.
7. Next I visualize another food I might eat.
8. I imagine tasting this second item, and how it feels as it goes into my stomach, and *stays in my system for some hours to come*.
9. I notice how I like this feeling. Do I like it more than my best choice so far? I keep in mind the food item that makes me feel best, to compare to my next choice.
10. Now I repeat steps 7, 8, and 9 as often as I want to, always keeping in mind the kind of food that I imagine would make me *feel the best over time* if I eat it. I compare each new possibility to that.
11. When I’m satisfied that I have considered enough options, I eat the food that I imagined would make me feel best over time, so that I’ll get to feel that good.

It takes a conscious effort to practice the strategy in the beginning. But if we keep with it, perhaps we'll soon internalize this way of mindful eating. I'm going to give it a try...

I'm so glad I saw your post! If you have questions, please email me.

All the best to you,

Susan

Thanks so much for taking the time to type that little paragraph out. I will most definitely give that a try. It sounds like it could work, although it might be a little difficult at first to mentally think through that each time at first. Once again, thanks! Let me know how it goes for you too.