Getting over the “clear your plate” mentality?
I grew up with parents that demanded I clear my plate before leaving the table. I know many people did. I realized this followed and developed into a bad habit- I would clear my plate even if I was over full. At restaurants as a kid I would get criticized for doing the same thing they demanded of me at home. Growing up all through high school and even when I was at home during college, my mom made my plate no matter what on nights she cooked. I didn’t get much say in how my plate actually looked.
This got reinforced in a bad way with my boyfriend’s mom when we lived with her for a couple years. She viewed anything left on your plate as waste. Even the habit I had gotten in college of saving part of dinner for lunch the next day was decimated- she would either snag it off my plate or insist on giving it to the dog. This just made me feel like a kid being shamed for not clearing my plate all over again.
Now I’m on my own. When we cook we typically plate things on the small side plates instead and find that that is plenty of food. I’m still working on convincing my boyfriend I don’t need a massive sized steak, but it’s gotten better. The problem is when we get any sort of take out. I work full time plus whatever overtime while he’s unemployed/disabled and our dinner plans have been hit or miss.
While we are getting better about meal prep, when we get take out I find myself reverting to clear my plate until I’m nauseous. We’ve come up with some tricks for me- separating things into appropriate portions before sitting down to eat for instance, but it’s still a fight. I’d like to just break this mindset all together.
Has anyone else had issues with the “clear your plate” mentality? Have you overcome it or do you just work around it? What do you do?
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