Stopping when you're satisfied

This may sound weird, but one of the things I find I still need to work on most is stopping when I'm satisfied.  Once food is on my plate, my inner child decides it's "mine" (especially since I've measured it out and it's an appropriate portion), and stamps her feet and feels "entitled" to eat it, and really doesn't want to stop even when she gets to the point of satisfaction.    Silly, I know, but it's clearly a thought pattern I need to change.  I'm making a conscious effort to avoid the problem by making my portions smaller, but that's really avoidance, not resolution.  I've never once had that "one bite too many" miserable experience so many people report, not that I've never overeaten post-op, but my body just doesn't punish me for it the way some of you report.

It does help if I can put the remainder away in the fridge to have later (see?  It's still mine!), but I need to see if I can't retrain myself in how I'm thinking and feeling about this. 

I'd appreciate any suggestions, tips, strategies... whatever.  I suspect the key is largely to bring the thought and emotion up out of the subconscious level so I'm thinking about it and having an inner conversation with myself about why that's irrational, but I'm still pretty new at changing old thought habits.  Any suggestions?

When I did WW I learned about portion sizes. (before vsg)
3oz is the size of a deck of cards/iPhone, I eat 1 oz veggies w that.

Frisco always advises to under eat your sleeve. I alway start with small portions and use a small plate.

I usually always measure out a portion that I know I can eat, and that's that..

Some days I can't fini**** (like tonight- 3oz chicken is too much, I was over-reaching.. 2.6 was where I stopped..)

- but even if I have the head-gimmies to keep going, I remember- I can eat this again, it's not the last time I'm seeing it.. for some reason, I have this all or nothing feeling that wells up still, but I don't pu**** When I realize I'm reaching my comfortably physically satisfied level I do stop. Sometimes this does give me a wistful, wish I had that bigger stomach for just a little while feeling, but it passes!

I'm with INgirl.

I've been working on stopping when I'm satisfied but in the meantime I dish out measured portions. In restaurants, I decide in advance how much I am going to eat, then separate it from the rest. Eating slowly also helps, as it gets the message to your brain that you're satisfied.

We all have dreams of being able to handle food in normal ways, but most of us didn't get morbidly obese by having a healthy relationship with food and surgery doesn't fix that. I'd love to have the same relationship with food that a never-heavy person has, but honestly I still don't and I'm not sure I ever will. It may be acceptance and healthy coping strategies for me and honestly I'm OK with that.

One question: why do you call making your portions smaller avoidance? Why not look at it the other way: the smaller portion is the correct portion size for you, right? So isn't serving yourself the correct portion size the healthy thing to do and serving yourself an outsized portion unhealthy?

I still have issues with eating too much at some meals. I am working on slowing down again. I have always been a wolfer with my food, and since my sleeve healed, I've been able to eat faster. Therefore, I don't always recognize that I'm satisfied and end up being uncomfortable because I ate more than I should - not necessarily a lot more, but still more. I have been making a conscious effort to stop and chew slowly again, and when I do that, I can more easily key into my satiation level. Someone told me that being satisfied means not feeling anything - hunger or fullness, but that we wait to feel the fullness, and thus, overeat.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts so far.  As I noted, I do measure, I do control portions (meaning I'm following my NUT's and surgeon's guidelines), and I'm talking about days when I'm well within my calorie limits.  I think what I'm hearing from all of you is that if I'm getting full (very often) before finishing what I've measured out for myself, I need to change my portions.  I'm sure that's true, and I'll put more focus on that.  But I do think that the mind games are the bigger part of this, and it's important to address them.  That's all I meant by "avoidance".  I see a problem in my mental patterns that I think it's important to address for long-term success, and though I can use other strategies to avoid getting into the situation where I'm full before I've finished my food, I think problematic mental patterns have a sneaky way of cropping up in other areas if you don't address them.  

I think I've come up with a reasonable armory of strategies to help me stop - the smaller portions, paying closer attention to enjoying my food, brushing my teeth or having a breath mint after a meal... What I'm not clear on is how exactly I go about trying to change the way I'm thinking about something, whether it's this specific issue, or something else.  The mental work is the hardest part of this journey!  I think I'm getting better at recognizing unproductive thought / emotional habits, and examining them and figuring out where they're coming from and recognizing that they're not logical, but that doesn't exactly make them magically stop.  I still find myself reacting the same way, and it may be that just practicing the thought process is all it takes and over time I'll stop reacting that way, but if there's an element of the process I'm missing, I'd like to know.  I'm just hoping for some insight on how the rest of you retrain yourselves to change the way you think about things.

Thanks again,
Beth