Yesterday I woke up hungry and ate a banana while I decided what I would eat.  I hadn’t given much thought to food the past few days.  For breakfast, I sliced a yellow squash with a handful of mushrooms and some kale and sauteed it with some fresh garlic. I topped it with cheesy tasting nutritional yeast. If I eat something like this every 3 hours, I stay satiated and fueled. I don’t always have the discipline though.

I was just doing things around the house, straightening up a little, doing laundry, vacuuming, walking in and out of the yard, picking up oak and pine deadfall.  I’d check Facebook every few hours and then feel hungry again.  About noon, I lightly tossed  some fresh green beans with olive oil, salt and pepper, slivers of red pepper and 4 fat whole cloves of garlic. Then spread out in one layer on a metal pan, oven to 400 degrees for 8 minutes, then turn oven off — do not open door — and leave in another 10 minutes to sweeten up.

I’d tossed a giant potato into the oven earlier and put the green beans in after 20 minutes.  I always use a baking nail when I bake a large potato; it cuts the cooking by half.   I often bake cut up boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the oven at 425 for 12 minutes, then turn over and bake another 4 minutes.  Then I turn the oven off and leave the chicken in for another 4 minutes.  I’ll have put a baking potato in the oven when I turned it on for the chicken, so by the time the chicken is in and done, the potato is as well.

I used the potato about 3:00pm for supper, topped with sauteed mushrooms and kale.  I felt like I’d been chopping and cooking and eating all day long, but it wasn’t anything heavy or fatty.  I felt super fueled.  My tummy was making happy gurgling sounds.  I love to hear that, it tells me everything is happy in there.

I used to need to feel full to feel satisfied.  Now I prefer the feeling of staying just a little bit empty, feeding myself as I would feed a fire, just a log here or there added at the right time to keep it all burning efficiently.  Holding that image helps remind me.  If I piled all the wood on at once, the fire would have a hard time keeping going.  It would be too crowded to breathe.

I know what that’s like.  I like a lot of space between my molecules, too.