“I overeat so often, I don’t know why I can't wrap my head around portion control.” Does this sound like you?

I hear this often – and as a default overeater, have totally been there myself. Maybe it's the whole Clean-Plate-Club pat on the back we would get as kids. Or this mental diddy, “Carly, you better eat all that or you might get hungry later, and you can’t be trusted when you're hungry late at night”. My mind's favorite story to tell is, "but it's all healthy food, so you can eat a lot of it!"

These stories create a pattern many of us want to change.

Sounds easy to just eat less but we both know overeating is not logical, it's emotional.

I know it’s not easy.

There’s a lot to consider here. I’ve written many blogs about conscious eating here, and here and over here too…

If you're truly ready to go deeper into the practice of conscious eating, then take a look at my 4-week online Conscious Eating Course. It will teach you how to tap into what's really driving your overeating, and give you real-time tools to interrupt the pattern.

While you consider taking the course, you can try this little fun tool in the meantime. It requires that you turn in your Clean Plate Club (de)merit badge.

My challenge to you is to leave one bite at every meal.

It's not really about the one bite, although these bites add up. Think about it: one bite at each meal. Multiply that by all the meals you eat in a week… that’s about 21 bites! That’s a legit plate of food.

More importantly, it will get you used to leaving some food on your plate, so eventually, you set an energetic boundary for more than just one bite.

If you really struggle with the Clean Plate Club membership, this is going to feel uncomfortable. When I started this practice over a decade ago, I would sit there and look at my one last bite…

“It’s just one bite! What does it matter?”

“Aww man, I engineered my plate to have the best parts of all the flavors in this last bite…”

“But it’s vegetables!”

“I hate wasting food!”

Your mind will have a field day with this.

It got so uncomfortable for me at one point, I started throwing out a bite at the beginning of the meal so I could clear my plate. Let that one sink in…

The mind is a powerful force, but we can gently reprogram her through new patterns. She works for us, after all.

Try it. How do you feel? What do you notice? What levels of consciousness are uncovered for you? I’d really like to know – email me here and let’s chat about it.

FUN FACT: A client told me that Dolly Parton does this as her "lifelong health trick." But Dolly calls it “saving a bite for the angels.” I can’t verify this claim, but I will admit that I love the idea that a little choir of angels has a full belly at the end of the week…

P. S. - Here's the link again to check out the 4-week online course called Conscious Eating 101. It's under $100 and you get a full refund if you find the program didn't help you.