portion control or right food

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  • Careygirl1968
    Careygirl1968 Posts: 58 Member
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    Moderation with both. I understand you are saying you have to focus on one or the other - but it's kind of hand in hand. If you are choosing the right foods, you can usually have larger portions. If you are choosing the "less friendly" foods, your portions will have to be miniscule. I find that I want to go for the "right" foods, so I can have the larger portions. Veggies are your friend - most have a negligible calorie count, and the fiber is filling. Once you get into a habit of thinking that way, I think you will find it easier to stay away from the more offensive foods. For example, when I see that I can have a microscopic porition of pizza, or spend half a lifetime on the treadmill burning it off if I eat as much as I would like, it makes the baked chicken and steamed veggies look much more appealing!
  • Weebs628
    Weebs628 Posts: 574 Member
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    portion control (calorie deficit) only until you drop most of whatever body fat you are trying to lose, then when your body fat gets low enough then the quality and macro counts come more into play along with the calorie deficit

    ^^This. Lost 26 pounds eating whatever I wanted as long as it was in my calorie goal. Now, I'm focusing more on my macros and eating healthier. I had pizza last night (3 slices) and a Reeses ice cream bar and it fit into my macros so it can be done! I still don't plan on limiting myself at all. I love food.
  • SorchaEilis
    SorchaEilis Posts: 99 Member
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    I really love food, so like everyone else is saying, I have to do both portion control and quality control. I still eat pizza and chinese food because I love them, and I absolutely refuse to give up chocolate. I've discovered that I can eat a lot more when I eat healthier food though, so I have learned lots of ways to substitute healthier things and still get the taste I want.

    For really successful weight loss and healthy living, you have to be able to enjoy your food. Make friends with the kitchen and get creative! You'd be surprised at how truly delicious healthy food can taste! For example, another 'food nemesis' of mine is ice cream. I love it, and could eat it every day! That's really not okay with my calorie goals though, so to get around that, I came up with a really good frozen greek yogurt recipe that even satisfies my picky, ice cream loving hubby. It has about half the calories of regular ice cream in a larger serving size, so it's a double win :-)
  • twoss9112
    twoss9112 Posts: 162 Member
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    You have to do both....if you eat a lot of processed food, you will hit your calorie budget very quickly and you will be hungry and deprived all the time. It will be much easier to stay within your calory budget if you eat the right kinds of food.

    I was going to say this too, but some people have to learn portion control in order to even get to the part about eating the right foods. Eating the "right" things doesn't do a lot of good if you're eating them in giant quantities.

    Example: the Rice Chex that I ate for breakfast ... not a "bad" food, perfectly ok for breakfast, far better than a big unhealthy bowl of Fruity Chocolately Marshmallowy Sugary Splashy-O's or a big plate of hasbrowns and sausage... but if I ate my seemingly healthy rice chex the way I used to (find giant cereal bowl, pour 4 cups worth of cereal and 1 whole cup of skim milk) I'd be eating 550 calories and I might as well have the hash browns and sausage. Even the "good" things need to be controlled portion-wise.

    Once I started budgeting the calories and realized that even ONE piece of pizza was taking up a huge chunk of my sad little 1200 calories, got rid of stuff like pizza pretty quickly. I'm not going to toss away 1/3 of my calories for the day on just one piece of pizza or one cheeseburger when there are so many other and better choices. Once the ability to look at portions sets in, the rest will come with it. At least for me it did.
  • twoss9112
    twoss9112 Posts: 162 Member
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    For really successful weight loss and healthy living, you have to be able to enjoy your food. Make friends with the kitchen and get creative! You'd be surprised at how truly delicious healthy food can taste! For example, another 'food nemesis' of mine is ice cream. I love it, and could eat it every day! That's really not okay with my calorie goals though, so to get around that, I came up with a really good frozen greek yogurt recipe that even satisfies my picky, ice cream loving hubby. It has about half the calories of regular ice cream in a larger serving size, so it's a double win :-)

    That's great! There are a LOT of ways to change up food and cut out calories and still eat delicious things.

    I've been snacking on fresh green beans for a snack (25 cal per cup!) and it gets boring. So the other day I decided to throw some Tostitos Chunky Medium Salsa on them (10 cal in 2 tbsp!) and now I have a really TASTY and super low-cal (and FILLING) snack!

    There are a lot of heath sites that give great ideas for substitutions also - I like Fitbie. They have useful tips. I read a tip the other day that I really want to try - use sliced zucchini or sliced up eggplants in place of the lasagna noodles to make lasagna! Sounds awesome.
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    Healthy Foods! If you learn portion control with the processed food, you will have to start all over with the healthy foods, while learning what constitutes healthy.

    If you learn to fill up with healthy foods, you will just start measuring when you are ready for a new challenge.

    With the healthy foods, you can still have the pizza once this week, and the Chinese next week.

    Ask for the Chinese without MSG, though. In the US, most MSG is made from sugar beets and has the same effect on your blood chemistry as mainlining sugar. That is why so many people feel hungry as soon as they leave the restaurant.
  • Firefox7275
    Firefox7275 Posts: 2,040 Member
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    Right kind of food: you won't get fat eating piles of low sugar fruits and non starchy vegetables unless you have a metabolic disorder. There are plenty of healthy foods which can be combined with the piles of fruits and veggies to fill you up - lean meats, oily fish, beans, lentils, seeds especially ground flax or chia.

    You can get fat eating too much of *anything*

    Feel free to consistently eat more than your TDEE of low sugar fruits and non starchy vegetables - yes the low calorie, nutrient dense ones. For an overweight male that would be 3000+ calories or ~5.2kg of blueberries or ~7.3kg of carrots and that is deliberately avoiding the low carb/ cal stuff like leafy greens!!
  • jennaworksout
    jennaworksout Posts: 1,739 Member
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    both
  • Spurrowell
    Spurrowell Posts: 35
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    Thank you all. I will go with the 46% who said Portion control. Only 23% said eating quality good foods. 31% of you really put the pressure on by saying Do Both and double your chances of success. Since this is just a one month goal, that means next month I will be doing both as much as possible, because I still love pizza, Chinese, ice cream, and pastries. From the sounds of the wise people on this site I can have them rarely as long as I don't go over my calorie allowance. Thanks again you have all been very helpful

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