No clean plates. 
I'm about to turn all of your old familiar food mantras onto their heads!  No clean plates? That's right. Think about this. Why on earth do we let other people dictate our portion sizes? When we "clean our plates" that is exactly what we are doing. We are saying that someone else knows better than we do how much of a particular food we want or need to eat.

Even if you are scooping up your own food, I maintain that you cannot know exactly how much food you need before you start to eat it. I have seen people (so have you) who are eating dinner and they say "Oh! I am soooo full!" and yet they keep on eating!!! What is that all about? They are letting someone else determine how much they should eat.

By leaving food on your plate, you are expressing your own independence, your own ability to stop eating when you choose to, not because you are out of food.

jne

Enjoy your food.
Ummmm ... But if you didn't enjoy your food, you would not be in this predicament, right? Well, you would be amazed at the amount of food that you consume when you are not even paying any attention!

When you are eating, make a bit of a production of it. Don't just eat stuff out of a bag  or a box; put it in a bowl or on a plate, and then put the bag or box away.  Then relish each bite! Feel it on your tongue, its crunch or its coolness, taste the salt, the sweet, the tang. Every bite!

The biggest waste of food is carrying it on your waist.  
"Oh, I can't let this good food go to *waste*!" You have heard the lament. We have all said it. We have all thought it. The idea that if we do not eat all of the food offered us, we are somehow wasting it, is an idea that contributes to the culture of obesity in this culture.

A woman wrote to Marilyn Vos Savant, columnist for Parade Magazine, well-known for her high IQ which has earned her a place in Guinness Book of World Records. Her question was, "Which is the bigger sin -- gluttony or waste? I feel guilty eating so much, but I feel guilty throwing it away." Marilyn's answer rang a bell with me, because this is something that I have long believed, and have actually felt quite alone in believing. She said that she believes "the greater wrong is gluttony, because it is actually two wrongs combined: gluttony and waste." (Parade, 7/18/99) 

When you think that it is a waste of food to not eat it, consider this: Wouldn't you toss into the landfill twenty pounds of perfectly good groceries if, by doing so, you would be ten pounds lighter?

To TRULY help starving children in China and elsewhere, go to The Hunger Site. It won't cost you a thing!

Never eat till you are full. You know the feeling. You pat your tummy, sit back in your chair, sigh heavily and say, "OOOooh I'm so full!" Well, for a moment, think about that feeling. Is it a good feeling? Really? One should never eat to the point of being uncomfortable. EVER. I have seen people in fine restaurants so full that they can hardly walk when they get finished. Is this the experience that you pay for when you go out to eat? I doubt it. You should feel GOOD when you leave a restaurant. 

For more on strategies to use when eating out, see Nuts & Bolts.