If you are part of the “baby boom” generation, then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about when I mention the “clean plate club.”

If you’re not aware, it’s exactly what the name implies.  It means that by the time you’re done eating, your plate is always clean – no leftovers on your plate no matter what!

As a kid, I absolutely had to finish every morsel on my plate and being full was not an excuse to leave food behind.  I understand why my parents were so insistent.  They lived through the Great Depression of the 1930′s when food was scarce for a lot of people and it was unheard to to waste anything.

And as a kid my eyes always seemed to be bigger than my stomach so I was often sitting at the dinner table trying to force down food still on my plate even though I was way past the point of fullness.  On the days when I vigorously rebelled against finishing every last morsel, my Mom pulled out the big guns and uttered the words ‘there’s starving children in Africa that would love to have your food” (I have no idea why she always chose Africa because there were children all over the world who didn’t have enough food).  But, saying that worked for my Mom because I always felt guilty enough to then finish my food.

Even though my Mom never intended to contribute to my tendency to overeat by making me eat all the food on my plate as a kid, by the time I was an adult I was so conditioned to eat everything on the plate set in front of me (kind of like Pavlov’s dog conditioning) that I found a way to polish off even the largest restaurant portions of food (to the point of sometimes coming home and throwing up because I was so overfull).

And we all know that today’s restaurant portions are ridiculously over-sized.  It’s to the point that some appetizers are so huge that they contain over 2,000 calories – more than I eat in an entire day right now!

Since I started Weight Watchers last year, I’ve been working hard on becoming a former member of the “clean plate club,” and I’m usually successful.  But not last night.  I got done eating and felt uncomfortably full.  And even though I made fresh sweet corn my entire meal, I should have stopped when I was full.  But because I don’t like it reheated I felt the need to eat everything I had cooked (it was a solo meal last night hence sweet corn being the only thing I prepared).

So I’m writing down my strategies for avoiding the “clean plate club syndrome” to remind myself to not to stop when I’m full at the graduation party and birthday party I have to attend this weekend.

Here’s my 5 best strategies for ending membership in the “clean plate club:”

1) Take smaller portions.  You can always go back and get more if you’re hungry or place an order for more with the waiter or waitress (sometimes getting more food isn’t an option so then take as much as you think you want the first time but then use strategies 4 and 5 to prevent overeating).

2) Eat slower.  It takes 20 minutes for the brain to signal to the stomach that a person is full.  If you’re shoveling food in at the speed of light you’ll be stuffed to the gills by the time 20 minutes have passed.

3) Stop feeling guilty.  The food police are not going to arrest you for leaving food on your plate.  Wrap up the leftovers for another meal if you want but don’t feel like you have to eat them.  It’s much better to leave food on the plate than have it take up permanent residence on your thighs or stomach and contribute to health problems down the road.

4) Become a food snob.  Only eat food worth the calories.  If you don’t like something don’t eat it just to be polite (because Aunt Claudia made it) or because you paid for it (my husband’s favorite reason) or because you feel the need to not waste it.

5) Destroy the food.  If you have a really hard time leaving food on your plate after you are full, do something to it to make it impossible to eat.  Pour copious amounts of salt over it or dump ketchup on it or pour water from your water glass over it.  That will take away the temptation to finish it.

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