HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY EAT WHEN YOU COOK

While my family size has reduced as the kids have grown and moved out I still have a husband and 2 kids to cook for. As many of you know, I adore cooking. The kitchen is my favorite room to be in until...juice-fasting time! I have a strange obsession with reading cookbooks while I'm juicing. Torture Thyself 101 LOL!  Then I want to shop for the ingredients for 20 different recipes and go make them all in one day. My food cravings kick in and I guess I project them onto my family! If I can't have it at least someone can!

Once I have all my recipes picked out, or my fabulous ideas for new creations drafted out, and my ingredients list checked off I head to the kitchen to have some fun. I then start cooking and realize, um...how do I know if this is good if I can't taste it? I have to rely on the other taste-testers in the house and hope they know what they are doing!! 

 For those of you who cook, do you realize how much you eat before you get to the actual meal? My first juice fast was back in November, 2011. I didn't realize how much I snacked/tasted while I cooked until I wasn't eating solid food anymore. It's no wonder I wasn't losing weight prior to that. This would be a large contributing factor. Then I  wasn't really hungry when it got time to serve the meal but I ate it anyhow. I had pretty much eaten a meal while I cooked. I would start to smell the wonderful aromas coming from the pans and the oven and get hungry. I'd grab some snacky stuff albeit vegetables and hummus, crackers or worse (yikes) and eat while I cooked. Then there were the taste tests. After the additions of herbs/spices or other ingredients you have to taste again. Hmm I'm hungry. I think I'll have another taste... or five.

I know we have a tendency to mindlessly eat if we're watching television or reading but I really didn't think I was doing it while I was cooking, and I cook a lot. Sometimes I'm in the kitchen most of the day. That's a lot of possibilities to eat food! Once I started my juice-fast I would catch myself. Picture making the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the little one. You finish up and wipe your finger on the knife and "clean it off"  before setting aside to wash it. How about cutting up the fruit and cheese plate (we no longer consume dairy) for the kids snack and you taste some of everything. I could give example after example. I was literally having some of everything I touched.  I found that whenever I was around food I was sampling it. It didn't register as really eating it because I wasn't consciously having a snack or a meal. It was "just a taste". Well, as many times as my hands went to my mouth with some solid-type food when I was juice-fasting, I'd venture to say I had at least a snack or two to add to my entire food consumption of the day. Even eating vegetarian and my misconception of a healthy diet. In my mind, I wasn't eating that much. I was very, very wrong!

Now that I'm aware of the pitfalls of having to cook and aware of my mindless eating it is much easier to avoid. I still catch myself as I bring my hand to my mouth, but it happens less frequently now. Cooking will make me hungry when I wasn't hungry before I started. I could go all day and not think about food. Dinnertime comes around and damn it! I could eat the kitchen table! Working with the food will make me crave things and then it gets hard to not want to shovel food into my mouth. I can get a little cranky around dinner time.

How much are you eating while you prepare food? How do you deal with food preparation during juice-fasting? I know some of us can avoid the kitchen most of the time but those of you who cannot, let me know what makes it easier or harder for you.

Chyrl