A matter of percentages

I made a poor decision for lunch today. I had two fried fish tacos from Rubios which equates to 14 Weight Watchers points. A 3 oz. serving of beans (2 pts) and a 3 oz. serving of rice (2 pts). So with 25 points for the day and already having used 18 for lunch, I'm either having lettuce for dinner or today is blown. I got to thinking about how much time I spend actually eating. I don't think I spend more than 10 minutes eating any meal, even dinner. And 10 minutes I probably on the high end.
Do I really wait hours in anticipation for something that only last 10 minutes? And then spend hours regretting it until the next time? Yes and yes. When I bring my lunch with me, I know it's already portion-controlled and planned. Not only is this conducive to my weight loss goal, it frees my mind up to think about other things. I brought my lunch all week and then today I didn't. That resulted in me spending a good chunk of the morning thinking/fantasizing/fighting with myself about what I was going to have. The results are much better when I let my rational, non-hungry side of my brain do the lunch packing so the neurotic, fat and sugar craving hungry side doesn't take over and make a bad decision later.
Back to the time spent actually eating. I would say breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks come out on the high side of 40 minutes a day. If I'm awake 16 hours a day that's 960 minutes. That is only 4.2% of my day I spent actually eating. The other 95.8% of my day I usually spend regretting what I've eaten and wishing I could stop eating crap so I could lose weight! Too often when I'm making food decisions, I'm only thinking about the next 10 minutes, not how this food is going to make me feel in 4, 6 or 8 hours. The next time I'm tempted by greasy fish tacos at 12 pm I am going to remind myself that by 4 pm it won't matter to me anymore so I might as well eat something healthy and work towards feeling fit and healthy the other 95% of the day.


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