Success stories for losing by mainly portion control

ChrissyChickie

Hi everyone, I'm hoping some people can share their success stories with me by losing using just portion control. I've tried so many diet plans and have only had limited success. I recently tried keto and that just didn't work for me (always had diarrhea). I like eating real food (actual mixed meals not little pile of carrots, little pile of nuts, little pile of avocado, etc). Thank you.

ChrissyChickie

I can't do the one meal a day eating either because I get too light headed, but can do intermittent fasting where I eat from 11 to 7 only. I have done several paid trainer plans, but didn't like the plans. The last plan had a breakfast which included 'fish', sorry, I just can't do fish for breakfast. I'm good also with not binge eating anymore.

HeidiCooksSupper

I think you will find many (if not most) MFP people are losing chiefly through portion control. Since no one food or eating schedule correlates with weight loss improvement over the long term, this is a site wherein most of us are simply using "calories in/calories out" as our philosophy.

If I do portion control, I lose weight. I do this by entering what I eat in the food diary and limiting my calorie intake. There are some foods I am eating less of because they are high calorie and provide little satisfaction. For example, mashed potatoes have pretty much gone by the wayside. That's not to say I couldn't eat mashed potatoes if I wanted to and if they fit within my daily calorie allowance.

My numbers won't work for you because I am a five-by-five, pushing 70 y.o. couch potato. I was eating 1550 calories a day (recently dropped to 1525) and am walking about a mile a few times a week, slowly, pushing a walker. I've lost 15 pounds in the last 5 weeks. I don't expect that rate of loss to continue because the less you weigh, the harder it is to lose. I still have well over 100 pounds to go though so the pounds should continue to fall off as long as I control my eating.

My diary is open. Bear in mind that I live in a community where we have our dinners delivered and so some of my items are "best matches" done with a scale and guesses about how the food was prepared.

RelCanonical

I just count calories and eat what I like. I did make some food changes to help with satiety, but that mostly involved a lot more vegetables and fruit, and less cheese. I never cut anything out entirely, I’m a moderator so I would go crazy if I could never have my favorite foods. I’m currently down 70 pounds, from 190-120, at 5’1”.

asthesoapturns

I'm not at goal yet but I've lost 50lb as if this morning by portion control and walking. Nothing has been dropped from my diet. I had cookies and milk for a snack today, a rum and coke yesterday. I just fot it into my day's calories and the weight has been steadily coming off.

ChrissyChickie

asthesoapturns wrote: »

I'm not at goal yet but I've lost 50lb as if this morning by portion control and walking. Nothing has been dropped from my diet. I had cookies and milk for a snack today, a rum and coke yesterday. I just fot it into my day's calories and the weight has been steadily coming off.

I like rum & cokes too! I think I'll swap that for my beer.

RunsWithBees

I never followed any eating plan and always ate what I wanted when I wanted... just not as much as I wanted so I lost by using portion control. I actually ate plenty of “fast food” and “junk foods” while losing, just staying within my calorie allowance. I lost 43 lbs and have kept it off for 6+ years. I still eat whatever I want, which includes “healthy foods” and “junk foods” and “fast food” and I’ve been able to maintain my goal weight within a few pounds of buffer zone. I eat back all of my earned exercise calories and try to stay as active as possible. If I can do it, you definitely can too!

asthesoapturns

ChrissyChickie wrote: »

asthesoapturns wrote: »

I'm not at goal yet but I've lost 50lb as if this morning by portion control and walking. Nothing has been dropped from my diet. I had cookies and milk for a snack today, a rum and coke yesterday. I just fot it into my day's calories and the weight has been steadily coming off.

I like rum & cokes too! I think I'll swap that for my beer.

Rum only has 70 calories an ounce. If you go sugar free for the cola (I have a Sodastream so I can sweeten it with whatever I want) you have a pretty reasonable treat if you don't overindulge.

Strudders67

I've lost 17kg still eating the same foods as before. My portions for some things are smaller, but mostly it's just less of the higher cal items and more protein / veg.

Instead of a large pile of rice, I cook it in bulk and bag up 100g portions to freeze. 100g with chilli or curry or stirfry or whatever, plus additional veg, is usually quite enough to soak up any juices. Instead of a mug of pasta and maybe another handful too, I weigh out however many grams I planned to eat (based on how I'm doing with my cals for that day). Instead of a lot of roast potatoes, I have two or three smaller pieces. I'll boil a number of potatoes at the same time, mash them (without butter or milk) and freeze that in smaller portion sizes. I add butter to what actually goes on my plate when I reheat a portion.

However, I still eat cake, crisps, biscuits, wine, beer and other things that some people would call 'unhealthy'. I just don't have the entire pack or multiple glasses. But if I fancy something and it fits my calories and my carbs, that's fine.

springlering62

All life is portion control for me. However, I have the freedom to designate and control how big or how small those portions will be. As long as I meet my bottom line, I’m good.

This morning’s breakfast was two gourmet donuts at nearly 1,000 calories. Lunch was two BLTs.

Dinner will be homemade hearty beef stew, under 300 for a generous portion.

Afternoon snacks were a piece of pie and a couple tbsp whipped cream, beef jerky, and some cherries, and after dinner dessert will be Greek yogurt with pudding mix, cool whip and sprinkles.

All should come in about 2200.

Portion control is New Me, forbidding Old Me from scarfing down a half dozen of those giant donuts, slapping extra bacon on those BLTs, or covering a giant scoop of cool whip in a big spoonful of sprinkles. Just a dab’ll do ya.

This doesn’t have to be difficult. Weigh, be mindful, be honest, and don’t overthink.

ChrissyChickie

springlering62 wrote: »

All life is portion control for me. However, I have the freedom to designate and control how big or how small those portions will be. As long as I meet my bottom line, I’m good.

This morning’s breakfast was two gourmet donuts at nearly 1,000 calories. Lunch was two BLTs.

Dinner will be homemade hearty beef stew, under 300 for a generous portion.

Afternoon snacks were a piece of pie and a couple tbsp whipped cream, beef jerky, and some cherries, and after dinner dessert will be Greek yogurt with pudding mix, cool whip and sprinkles.

All should come in about 2200.

Portion control is New Me, forbidding Old Me from scarfing down a half dozen of those giant donuts, slapping extra bacon on those BLTs, or covering a giant scoop of cool whip in a big spoonful of sprinkles. Just a dab’ll do ya.

This doesn’t have to be difficult. Weigh, be mindful, be honest, and don’t overthink.

This is great. It is so much easier sticking with things when you can enjoy things too!

AnnPT77

Yup, pretty much just portion control. I eat (and drink) generally the same things I did to become obese, and stay obese for multiple decades, just in different portions and proportions.

Don't get me wrong: I think nutrition is important, so it's part of the picture, along with satiation, tastiness, practicality, and various other factors I balance with my calorie goals.

But life is way too short, IMO, to eat foods that aren't tasty (to me).

FWIW, this is the eating plan I used (link below), focused on eating foods one likes, gradually evolving the portions/proportions to balance the various things mentioned above, among others.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

disasterman

I use a salad plate, not a dinner plate, and don’t have seconds of anything except veggies/salads.