Leftovers Are Known to Cause Weight Gain!!

PRMinx

I can't even comprehend this...I eat leftovers for lunch. But, more importantly, why are you wasting food on purpose?

Unknown

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pdank311

I've never been a huge fan of leftovers unless it's something that collects flavor such as sauce. Day one it's good, day 4 it's picked up massive amounts of flavor and is way better. So I cook to portion every meal / day. It's definitely more work, but my meals are fresh every day and I enjoy that.

I don't view it as a chore though. It's more of a creative activity and helps me decompress from the day.

sheepotato

I eat leftovers all the time, restaurant portions are insane so I usually only eat half and the other half as a different meal. My lunch is usually leftovers from dinner the night before.

I have left or thrown away food if there wasn't enough for another meal when I was finished before so that I don't overeat anymore. I had to get over the 'clean your plate' mentality I was raised on too, I think feeling like throwing away food is a victory might be an overcorrection.

Local_Atlantis

While the wording of this is ridiculous, I know what the OP is trying to say.

For me, it was always considered rude to leave any food on the plate, which caused a bad habit of eating past the point of hunger. It was always "No dessert unless you finish what's on your plate" and I aaaalways wanted dessert.

Eating only when hungry is a key to good nutritional intake - fuel your body when it needs it, and sends signals to tell you to eat. This is a good habit that I could have been better educated on by my parents. Not saying that my parents did a bad job or anything!! I'm just saying.. I get where the OP is going. ... Sort of... Haha!

deluxmary2000

Confusing thread is confusing.

I think what OP was TRYING to say (and failed amazingly) is that the "clean plate" mentality can lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, his solution is to simply throw away uneaten food, rather than to show some self-control and package it up for later.

Sabine_Stroehm

sheepotato wrote: »

I eat leftovers all the time, restaurant portions are insane so I usually only eat half and the other half as a different meal. My lunch is usually leftovers from dinner the night before.

I have left or thrown away food if there wasn't enough for another meal when I was finished before so that I don't overeat anymore. I had to get over the 'clean your plate' mentality I was raised on too, I think feeling like throwing away food is a victory might be an overcorrection.

YES! Funny. We got take out chinese last night on the way home. I had dinner. I had breakfast, and I will have lunch. From ONE "dinner".

willrun4bagels

OP, by your logic... you say it's the cleaning of one's plate that causes weight gain. So, therefore, would having leftovers not be the solution to this? You could have a plate of food that amounts to 1600 calories, but if you eat half one day and take the second half home as leftovers to eat the next day, you've eaten 800 calories for each meal. Your post makes no sense.

Kalikel

lisajo89 wrote: »

While the wording of this is ridiculous, I know what the OP is trying to say.

For me, it was always considered rude to leave any food on the plate, which caused a bad habit of eating past the point of hunger. It was always "No dessert unless you finish what's on your plate" and I aaaalways wanted dessert.

Eating only when hungry is a key to good nutritional intake - fuel your body when it needs it, and sends signals to tell you to eat. This is a good habit that I could have been better educated on by my parents. Not saying that my parents did a bad job or anything!! I'm just saying.. I get where the OP is going. ... Sort of... Haha!

That makes more sense.

I still hate to waste food and am guilty of eating a few bites that I don't want just so that it doesn't go down the disposal, which is silly, I know.

cwolfman13

When proper portions are used, being in the clean plate club isn't a big deal...I mean, an appropriately portioned plate might look something like this...



The problem is that many of us think this is more appropriate...or at least thought at one time it was...



so the problem isn't cleaning your plate, or even having leftovers...the problem is understanding what a proper portion of something is for you and your goals. Cleaning an appropriately portioned plate isn't a big deal...cleaning a plate that is overflowing when you've already maxed out for the day is...

GingerbreadCandy

lisajo89 wrote: »

While the wording of this is ridiculous, I know what the OP is trying to say.

For me, it was always considered rude to leave any food on the plate, which caused a bad habit of eating past the point of hunger. It was always "No dessert unless you finish what's on your plate" and I aaaalways wanted dessert.

Eating only when hungry is a key to good nutritional intake - fuel your body when it needs it, and sends signals to tell you to eat. This is a good habit that I could have been better educated on by my parents. Not saying that my parents did a bad job or anything!! I'm just saying.. I get where the OP is going. ... Sort of... Haha!

That would make more sense. I hope this is what he means…

Still… the idea of throwing away perfectly good food, especially now that I am on a tight budget, makes me cringe. .____.

Learn to cook smaller portions if you really cannot help it.

feisty_bucket

johnnylakis wrote: »

2) Taught me how to cook smaller meals and avoid unnecessary weight gain

Yeah, this is the most useful bit, I think. I don't "like" leftovers, in that they're a ticking timebomb of deterioration in the fridge and a failure of portion-sizing.

So I prepare exactly how much I'm gonna eat, and that's that. If I mess up and eat more than I expected somehow, that means I've pre-eaten for the next meal which is therefore smaller. (Thanks to the calorie-banking idea, which is the single most useful thing I've learned about on this forum.)

KGRebelRanch

johnnylakis wrote: »

This is the single most detrimental thing to losing weight. Many of us were taught to clean our plates and not waste food. That somehow would benefit the starving children of the world. As a result, we feel obligated to finish meals, even if we are full. Something that worked for me was throwing away any food left after a meal. What did this accomplish?
1) I lost weight. Fact is, you eat less, you lose weight.
2) Taught me how to cook smaller meals and avoid unnecessary weight gain

I don't throw away food. That's wasteful. I either eat leftovers the next meal/next day, or it gets composted or fed to my livestock. One way of another, SOMETHING is eating the food.

katherine_startrek_fan

SideSteel wrote: »

I'd say the opposite is more true than the claim you're making, OP.

For restaurant food, eating less than the serving size and taking some home (rather than wasting it which is silly) is likely to lead to better weight management.

Additionally, preparing food in bulk to intentionally create leftovers is a very smart move because it allows you greater convenience throughout the week. This is especially important for people who tend to make poor food choices when they are stressed out and pressed for time. Think about the times you get home from work, or you are on the way home from work and you think "crap I don't have time to make something "healthy" so I'll just hit the drive through" or order a pizza or whatever. Preparing food in bulk (or having leftovers) is a great thing in this circumstance.

This!

Lounmoun

johnnylakis wrote: »

This is the single most detrimental thing to losing weight. Many of us were taught to clean our plates and not waste food. That somehow would benefit the starving children of the world. As a result, we feel obligated to finish meals, even if we are full. Something that worked for me was throwing away any food left after a meal. What did this accomplish?
1) I lost weight. Fact is, you eat less, you lose weight.
2) Taught me how to cook smaller meals and avoid unnecessary weight gain

Eating less causes you to lose weight of course. You don't have to throw food away to stop eating too much.
You can put less food on your plate- measure/weigh out proper portion sizes in advance so the amount you put on your plate fits your calorie goal. Then you can eat everything on your plate.
Stop eating when you are full- put the remainder of the food away for another meal or see if someone else wants it. I'd rather feed leftovers to my dog than throw them in the trash (assuming the food is safe for the dog to eat).
Cook less food at one time. If you know you only eat a small amount, don't have storage space or have will power issues then cooking less is a great solution. I have a small family so I often make half a recipe as I don't have room to store a bunch of leftovers from every single meal.
Cook more than you need sometimes with the plan that you will use leftovers for other meals- only take the amount for that meal that fits your calorie goal for the day.

malibu927

Oh, clean plate, not actual leftovers? If you're able to portion/weigh your meal, then there's no problem.

SnuggleSmacks

This is one of the more ridiculous claims I've seen on this forum. I would starve most evenings at work since I make enough lunch to take leftovers for dinner.

I mean...it's all good as long as you cleanse with a juice fast after eating leftovers, then pull some oil to remove the toxins they leave in your mouth. Amiright?

999tigger

OP your post is just depressing because you fail to understand what MFP tries to teach you.
Your statement is just dumb, if thats what you believe.

queenliz99

As I am eating the last of the turkey in my soup. BooYah

segacs

lisajo89 wrote: »

While the wording of this is ridiculous, I know what the OP is trying to say.

For me, it was always considered rude to leave any food on the plate, which caused a bad habit of eating past the point of hunger. It was always "No dessert unless you finish what's on your plate" and I aaaalways wanted dessert.

Eating only when hungry is a key to good nutritional intake - fuel your body when it needs it, and sends signals to tell you to eat. This is a good habit that I could have been better educated on by my parents. Not saying that my parents did a bad job or anything!! I'm just saying.. I get where the OP is going. ... Sort of... Haha!

^This.

As a small (5'1") woman, I have had to get over the mental hurdle of leaving food over on my plate without guilt. "Clean your plate" is ridiculous advice when I'm being served up a portion of food that's the same size as what a 6' man is getting. And the pressure I would feel (at restaurants, in social situations) to eat as much as everyone else, even though my calorie needs are much smaller, is one of the factors that led to my weight gain in the first place.

Of course, at home, I try to cook smaller portions. Even that requires adjusting recipes and shopping carefully, since individually-portioned foods in grocery stores are also meant for larger people. But I have more control over that.

In restaurants, though? I've finally realized that cleaning my plate isn't going to help that hungry child halfway across the world one iota. Instead, it's just going to make me fat. I've learned to either share with someone else, take half of what I get home, or -- if it's something that simply won't reheat well the next day -- to simply send half of it back with a smile and an "it was very good, thank you, just too much" to the waiter.

Wasteful? Yeah, maybe. But it's better than eating all those extra calories just to be polite.

BigGuy47

Pie

Alatariel75

But.... if you have leftovers, you didn't clean your plate.

I make a meal with the intention of having leftovers for lunches, for back up dinners. Throwing "leftover" food away is wasteful and ridiculous.

And I always clean my plate. Because I only put on my plate what I intend to eat.

Lasmartchika

OMG... what a bunch of food wasted... if you're not gonna eat it, at least give it to the homeless. There are starving people in this world. And how about serving yourself on a smaller plate so you don't have a lot of food on your plate? People like you OP seriously piss me off cuz there are people who can't afford food and you're just throwing it away. :noway:

segacs

Lasmartchika wrote: »

OMG... what a bunch of food wasted... if you're not gonna eat it, at least give it to the homeless. There are starving people in this world. And how about serving yourself on a smaller plate so you don't have a lot of food on your plate? People like you OP seriously piss me off cuz there are people who can't afford food and you're just throwing it away. :noway:

See, this is exactly the attitude that I've had to overcome in order to lose weight.

There are people going hungry, yes. But me eating everything on my plate when I'm not hungry anymore isn't going to help them. Whether the food ends up on my hips or in a restaurant's bin doesn't affect whether people will keep on going hungry in the world. And piling on the guilt ("finish your food! children are starving!") is how so many of us got to where we are in the first place.

Know what will help them? Volunteer or donate to a food bank. Organize a food drive. Cook and bring food to a homeless shelter. Get involved with the community.

Yes, I cook with an eye towards avoiding waste. In restaurants, ordering less isn't usually an option since most restaurants have set portion sizes. I share food when it's practical, and I take leftovers home with me when it's practical, but sometimes the best thing to do when faced with too much food is just to send it back.

But world hunger will not be solved by me finishing my french fries.

Abby2205

johnnylakis wrote: »

Many of us were taught to clean our plates and not waste food.

My mother did this, even had to stay at the table to finish our vegetables, and many years later she confessed that she didn't even know why. Nevertheless we all became adults and it's totally within our power to not eat everything that manages to fit on the plate. It's arbitrary anyway, "one-third of a dinner plate" is not a standard serving size.

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TimothyFish

I saw some research that showed that pasta that was cooked and then cooled had less food calories (some chemical reaction makes part of it indigestible). That would indicate that for some foods, if you only ate leftovers you would lose more weight.

SnuggleSmacks

segacs wrote: »

lisajo89 wrote: »

While the wording of this is ridiculous, I know what the OP is trying to say.

For me, it was always considered rude to leave any food on the plate, which caused a bad habit of eating past the point of hunger. It was always "No dessert unless you finish what's on your plate" and I aaaalways wanted dessert.

Eating only when hungry is a key to good nutritional intake - fuel your body when it needs it, and sends signals to tell you to eat. This is a good habit that I could have been better educated on by my parents. Not saying that my parents did a bad job or anything!! I'm just saying.. I get where the OP is going. ... Sort of... Haha!

^This.

As a small (5'1") woman, I have had to get over the mental hurdle of leaving food over on my plate without guilt. "Clean your plate" is ridiculous advice when I'm being served up a portion of food that's the same size as what a 6' man is getting. And the pressure I would feel (at restaurants, in social situations) to eat as much as everyone else, even though my calorie needs are much smaller, is one of the factors that led to my weight gain in the first place.

Of course, at home, I try to cook smaller portions. Even that requires adjusting recipes and shopping carefully, since individually-portioned foods in grocery stores are also meant for larger people. But I have more control over that.

In restaurants, though? I've finally realized that cleaning my plate isn't going to help that hungry child halfway across the world one iota. Instead, it's just going to make me fat. I've learned to either share with someone else, take half of what I get home, or -- if it's something that simply won't reheat well the next day -- to simply send half of it back with a smile and an "it was very good, thank you, just too much" to the waiter.

Wasteful? Yeah, maybe. But it's better than eating all those extra calories just to be polite.

So it is in fact the lack of leftovers which contributes to weight gain...ie. the reluctance to leave anything for leftovers, because we've been trained to feel obligated to clean our plates.

segacs

I think that's what OP was trying to say, it was just worded poorly.

lilmisfit1987

I fail to see how left overs cause weight gain. From what you said leaving no left overs and finishing everything on your plate even though you're full causes weight gain. Soooo...how does saving the extra food on your plate until tomorrow instead of wasting it and throwing it in the trash save your waistline? It sounds like it saves your waistline as well as your wallet!