I stopped eating salad before dinner

Before dinner I used to eat a small bowl of greens or roasted vegetables. I told myself it was a healthy start and that I was being good before I got full. The bowl sat on the counter while I cooked. I ate from it standing up. By the time the pasta200 kcal, rice205 kcal, or stew was ready, I was already half full from lettuce and broccoli. I thought of the salad as the responsible choice. It also took the room I needed for the rest of the meal.

I was trying to gain weight, and the greens were filling the space where the calories needed to go. I was eating useful food in the wrong order. A bowl of steamed broccoli has about fifty calories. A bowl of pasta with butter102 kcal and cheese110 kcal has about five hundred. I put the fifty in first, then told myself I could not finish the five hundred because I was already full.

I put the fifty-calorie bowl in first and then could not finish the five-hundred-calorie pasta.

One night I skipped the salad and went straight to the pasta. I ate more of it than I had in weeks. My stomach had room because I had not filled it with water and fiber first. The pasta had butter and parmesan110 kcal and gave me the calories I needed. The salad would have taken the space of about two of those servings and given me almost no calories in return. I sat at the table, ate slowly, and finished the whole bowl.

I still eat vegetables. I eat them with the meal on the same plate, or after it when I want them. I put them next to the richer food so they are part of dinner instead of something I finish first. A few roasted carrots next to the polenta. A handful of spinach7 kcal folded into the stew. The greens are the same. The timing is what changed how much of the main food I could eat.

I still put vegetables on the plate. They no longer go in first, and more of the meal I need for weight gain fits.