What the extra pays

Nobody keeps eating for no reason. If the extra gave you nothing you'd have stopped years ago. So before arguing with it, I want to list what it pays, as fairly as I can. I count six payments.

The first is taste. The food is good and more of it means more of the taste. This is the obvious one, and chapter 3 looks at how true it is.

The second is not wasting. Food left on a plate feels wrong to most people. It feels like money in the bin and an insult to whoever cooked. Finishing it puts that feeling to rest.

The third is that the meal goes on. For many people dinner is the best half hour of the day. You're sitting down, nobody expects anything, and there's something nice in front of you. When the eating stops, the washing up starts, and the evening's jobs after it. Another helping puts that off.

The fourth is comfort. Eating is soothing. After a bad day, a full stomach and a rich taste can dull things for a while. Chapter 10 is about this.

The fifth is belonging. Other people are still eating, or your host is offering more, or the family rule was always that you clear your plate. Carrying on keeps you in step.

The sixth is avoiding a small loss. Stopping with good food still in front of you feels like walking away from something that was yours. It's only a small pang. Still, it comes at every meal, and carrying on is the quickest way to make it go.

Those are real. Now the costs, and I'll leave weight until last because it isn't the centre of this book.

The first cost is the next hour. You're overfull. You feel heavy and dull, and whatever you'd planned for the evening looks like too much effort.

The second is what it does to the memory of the meal. The lasagne was lovely for the first two thirds. But the last thing you felt about it was a mild nausea, and that's what stays with you. The extra takes a good meal and gives it a bad ending.

The third is how you feel about yourself. "I've done it again" is a small daily defeat, and it piles up. For some people it's what sets off the next round. Feeling bad about eating turns into a reason to eat.

The fourth is that the signal gets harder to hear. This is my interpretation and not a finding. If you ride past enough at every meal, you get very little practice at noticing it. Over the years, comfortable stops registering, and overfull becomes the only signal you know.

The fifth is sleep and the night. A heavy stomach at bedtime isn't a recipe for a good night, as most people know from experience.

The sixth is weight and health. Food eaten past need is, by definition, more than your body asked for, and over the years that may show. It may matter to your health and it may not. That's a question for you and your GP, and I've no way of answering it. I've put it last on purpose. I think the habit is worth changing for the sake of your evenings alone, and a book that leads with weight tends to turn into a diet book by the back door.

Here's a question to carry through the rest of the book. When you're partway through a meal, ask, "Am I still hungry, or is it just still here?" You don't have to stop. For now, just notice which answer you get.