After Work

It's 3 p.m. and I just got home from work.  I don't know about you but when I walk through the front door I am ravenously hungry.  If it is not nailed down I will eat it.  Even if I just had lunch I am hungry when I get home.  Today, I realized that it is real hunger.  I have been eating yogurt and fruit as an afternoon snack on a semi regular basis but I would usually have it at work.  Today, I planned to have it after I got home.  I walked through the door and my first thought was to get out some crackers or some chocolate and I was already trying not to feel guilty about the chocolate.   Today I took a step back from my craving and thought for a minute.  That short time-out made me realize that what I was feeling was real, stomach hunger.  In the next minute I remembered that I had a snack set aside for the afternoon.   In the past I have eaten a breakfast of a bowl of cereal or an egg and toast.  Then at work I would have a cup of dry cheerios, then I would come home and eat everything in sight Not surprising, right? 
   Today is different.  Today, after I realized I was hungry I fixed my snack - a cup of fresh strawberries with a small container of vanilla yogurt on top and I sprinkled the whole thing with a tablespoon of grape nuts.  Let me tell you - there isn't anything much better than good fresh strawberries and vanilla yogurt.  My stomach is comfortably full.  I could eat more but I don't have that ravenous craving that drives me to eat everything in sight.    At first I felt sort of guilty at the bowl that was full.  As I ponder this I wonder if I really know how much food is too much.  In the past ANY amount of food was too much.  Truth to tell - when I visited my nutritionist - she said "when you come home from work I want you to have a parfait made with fresh fruit and yogurt." Those were her exact words.  (She also said I wasn't eating enough to lose weight.)    I have her permission to eat and she should know what she is talking about.  This is food to nourish my body so I can do the work I need to do this afternoon (on top of that it was extremely tasty.)  I tell you, it's a really, really good feeling.