Listening to my Body

Today I ate light. I didn't work out, but I still ate less than what I would have if I hadn't eaten out. Basically, I was careful. I ate slowly. I thought about whether I was really hungry or not. And surprise surprise, I ate probably half of what I would have otherwise.
Breakfast-- I wasn't that starving, so I had 1/4 cup cottage cheese, 1/4 cup yogurt, half a banana, some raspberries, 1/4 cup grapenuts, and a tsp of flax. As you can see, this isn't deprivation or anything, but is definitely lighter than what I would have gotten. If I had been truly still hungry, I would have gotten more, but since I wasn't, I stuck with it. It was a great feeling not to feel stuffed after breakfast.
The thing is, I was so focused on thinking about eating slowly that I FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAPH MY FOOD! Ha... I find that really funny.
After breakfast I went to Istria, the yummy cafe/ gelato place by my house, to write my first art history paper. I made big mistake # 1 of the day: I ordered a cappuccino. I remember that my mom loves their cappucinos, but the "small" was honestly the size of a soup bowl. I know most of it was foam, and I had no problem finishing it, but I honestly felt nauseous and had a stomache ache for the rest of the day. This is why I really shouldn't drink coffee. Anyways, it was still a good idea to go there because I just sat down and wrote my paper. You have to pay for wireless there, so there was nothing to distract me.
I came back and we ate lunch a little while later. My lunch was also maybe a 1/3 of the size of my usual one... I had one piece of pumpernickel with hummus, spinach, and 2 triangles of lemon thyme tofu, plus a carrot, some cucumber and celery with the rest of the hummus. I also had a bowl of Trader Joe's roasted pepper and tomato soup. I ate very slowly and even noticed that all the different flavors were more pronounced... the tofu is definitely DELICIOUS in sandwiches. The chewy texture made it so satisfying!
I didn't finish all the vegetables.
A big later, I decided I just HAD TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. I decided to go downtown for no apparent reason and run some errands. The problem is, I am probably the only moron in this country who has never heard of Black Friday (my mom explained it when she called later), so I didn't understand why 1) I had to stand squished on the bus the whole way there 2) I could hardly move walking down the street and 3) there were tons of sales.
I WAS ON MICHIGAN AVENUE, for crying out loud. How stupid could I be?
Talk about unobservant... I mean, I knew people were here for Thanksgiving break... It was weird, because listening to all the different languages, I mainly just heard Chinese and French, the 2 foreign languages that I speak, being spoken... EVERYWHERE. It was like I was in China and not America, that's how many Chinese people there were.
I stopped in Nordstrom and got some shirts (didn't even want to think about buying pants), eye makeup, and body butter. Then I walked to the Borders by Watertower and bought Interview with the Vampire, which I am already really into. Then I walked really far north, realized there were no bus stops, then walked all the way back and over the bridge. I would say I got a good 3 mile walk in today, so at least I wasn't totally sedentary. I'm going to swim tomorrow, I think.
When I got home, I had to acknowledge the fact that I was pretty hungry. I didn't want to completely spoil my appetite, but I needed something more than just a piece of fruit. I had an apple (sliced, to make it last longer), a spoonful of peanut butter, and a few crackers with some milky tea. When I finished, I saw there were some crackers that I'd missed. I was about to eat them when I stopped myself-- I was full for the time being. I think I'm going about this the right way.
Dinner was very fast-- we just had leftovers and my dad stir-fried some zucchini really quickly.
For protein, I had some black beans with a bit of yogurt. My plate also has the zucchini, cranberry sauce, corn bread, and some of the squash-millet bake.
I ate slowly and DIDN'T HAVE SECONDS. I was tempted, but honestly my stomach has been feeling weird since the coffee and I didn't.
However, I do feel some hunger pangs, so I'm going to have a small snack. I don't feel deprived-- I just feel pure. Of course, I'll eat more when I exercise and eating is still my life... I just don't feel overstuffed anymore.

UGH, for the second time since my mom left, I tasted spoiled milk. I guess the problem is that my dad doesn't drink milk and I don't drink it that much... Maybe we should just stop buying it? I used the other milk, which is even older but somehow hasn't spoiled yet... I wonder what they put in it-- I'm slight suspicious (it was the 2%)-- anyways, even though it's caffeinated, I had some hot chocolate. When my stomach feels strange some warm milk usually makes it feel better. I had some grapes and a tiny piece of Green and Black's dark chocolate to feed my sweet tooth. And off to bed I go!