Portion Control-any apps
Replies
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michelleepotter wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.
I like this too, and agree.
I started thinking of meat portion sizes as 4 oz raw (for some reason I was actually quite familiar with standard serving sizes on some things), pasta as 56 g dry, vegetables and tubers as about 100 g (this one I just made up because round #), cheese as 1 oz, ice cream as .5 cup (same for cottage cheese and yogurt) (although I'd use the grams that went with .5 cup), and over time, as I was logging and paying attention to goals and what was filling and tasted good, I adjusted. I quickly realized that for meat and fish more than the serving size usually worked for me, for pasta the serving size was good, maybe even less and then more sauce (as a kid I was taught that it was better to have more pasta, less sauce/toppings, since that's what Italians supposedly did, but I always liked the sauce or other toppings best, so now mix a little pasta with my lean meat and veg based sauce). For veg I usually eat more than the 100 (or 100 of 2-3 different veg), for potatoes I may be happy with 75 g, but really go by eye and what I'm having overall -- using MFP for a while means I can combine foods pretty easily to get the general mix in my day that I'm going for, I just know it intuitively now.
I'm pretty sure your attitude make you sound like an anarchist to the 21 day fixers
I have another example. I accidentally opened the wrong carton of milk yesterday (I had overbought; usually I buy just one, and I had already bought one, but I snatched another that was marked down because of date - I can use both if I plan well - I remembered that I had two, but alas, too late), so I need to use more milk now and reduce some other things instead. It's going to be just fine - I'll replace one crispbread with double amount of milk, and have hot cocoa instead of nuts, etc, for a few days. This would have been impossible if I were to follow the plate model or the "recommended serving sizes" BS. I would just freak out and give up and dive into the potato chips. Because I can decide for myself - I think I will survive. Nothing bad will happen.
Does milk actually go bad faster once it's opened? I'd think if you left it in a cold part of the fridge, it would last just fine as long as it would have closed. But I have been known to be wrong before.
I'm really not sure, to be honest. This is something I have always just assumed: I think I have it from my parents. When something is opened, use it as fast as possible. But I have the opportunity to test that theory now
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kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.
I like this too, and agree.
I started thinking of meat portion sizes as 4 oz raw (for some reason I was actually quite familiar with standard serving sizes on some things), pasta as 56 g dry, vegetables and tubers as about 100 g (this one I just made up because round #), cheese as 1 oz, ice cream as .5 cup (same for cottage cheese and yogurt) (although I'd use the grams that went with .5 cup), and over time, as I was logging and paying attention to goals and what was filling and tasted good, I adjusted. I quickly realized that for meat and fish more than the serving size usually worked for me, for pasta the serving size was good, maybe even less and then more sauce (as a kid I was taught that it was better to have more pasta, less sauce/toppings, since that's what Italians supposedly did, but I always liked the sauce or other toppings best, so now mix a little pasta with my lean meat and veg based sauce). For veg I usually eat more than the 100 (or 100 of 2-3 different veg), for potatoes I may be happy with 75 g, but really go by eye and what I'm having overall -- using MFP for a while means I can combine foods pretty easily to get the general mix in my day that I'm going for, I just know it intuitively now.
I'm pretty sure your attitude make you sound like an anarchist to the 21 day fixers
I have another example. I accidentally opened the wrong carton of milk yesterday (I had overbought; usually I buy just one, and I had already bought one, but I snatched another that was marked down because of date - I can use both if I plan well - I remembered that I had two, but alas, too late), so I need to use more milk now and reduce some other things instead. It's going to be just fine - I'll replace one crispbread with double amount of milk, and have hot cocoa instead of nuts, etc, for a few days. This would have been impossible if I were to follow the plate model or the "recommended serving sizes" BS. I would just freak out and give up and dive into the potato chips. Because I can decide for myself - I think I will survive. Nothing bad will happen.
Does milk actually go bad faster once it's opened? I'd think if you left it in a cold part of the fridge, it would last just fine as long as it would have closed. But I have been known to be wrong before.
I'm really not sure, to be honest. This is something I have always just assumed: I think I have it from my parents. When something is opened, use it as fast as possible. But I have the opportunity to test that theory now
If I have two of anything (or three, or four), my kids will open all of them. They drive me crazy because they open a new bottle of shampoo as soon as I buy it, and then they stop using the old bottle. By the time I finish the old bottle (by myself), the new bottle is empty. Ugh! But that doesn't really give me insight into milk, because it never lasts very long here.1 -
Portion control is absolutely a necessary thing for many people who want to lose weight and maintain that weight loss. However, strict adherence to the recommended serving size is not needed. Even in those exchanges, you might eat 1.25 servings of something and 0.75 servings of a similar thing to get to 2 servings overall.I disagree that portion control isn't necessary. OP, search Google Play for "Exchange Diet". There is an app that diabetics use to check off the portions of grains, proteins, dairy, fruits, etc that they will consume on a given day, based on their caloric limit. Perhaps that is what you are looking for.
Just weight out what you want of something and that's your portion at that moment. If it ends up being less than a serving, that leaves extra calories to use elsewhere. If it ends up being more than a serving, that's fine but you may need to adjust the portions of the other foods you eat for that meal (or day or week) to accommodate those calories. You may decide to reduce your portion because of the impact it will have on how many calories you have left.
Portion control is overall awareness of how much you are eating, not having to eat the exact serving sizes specified in the nutritional info. There's plenty of flexibility available even if you work at keeping your macros balanced.6 -
Had to be repeated
Just weight out what you want of something and that's your portion at that moment. [/quote]
Losing weight here has taught me that losing weight is NOT about portion control. It's about planning meals and seeing if they fit in your daily calories.
Portion control was a lie told to me, that kept me fat for years.
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MelaniaTrump wrote: »Had to be repeatedJust weight out what you want of something and that's your portion at that moment.
Losing weight here has taught me that losing weight is NOT about portion control. It's about planning meals and seeing if they fit in your daily calories.
Portion control was a lie told to me, that kept me fat for years.
I'm confused. What's meal planning without portion control? What's portion control besides fitting food into your daily calories?2
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