Portion Control and Moderation

robingmurphy wrote: »

Ugh, my willpower is awful though. Is there some way I can build it up?

Start with small changes. Trying to 180 your life will lead to failure.

My willpower and motivation lag sometimes too, but I'd rather be fit than fat, therefore I put in the work.

songbird13291 wrote: »

Another restaurant trick. Before you start to eat, divide everything on the plate in half. Get a "to go" box and put half of the food away.

Ya, I do this. Half an American entree is plenty for me.

I personally think eating large amounts of those low calorie veggies is the key to making this last long term. I eat around 1250 calories a day (and allow myself to go over that once or maybe even twice per week) and I eat a TON of vegetables. I don't eat much bread, dairy, meat, or sugary treats.

Eating 1200 calories worth of what I used to eat before I lost weight would amount to a couple slices of toast and a piece of pizza a day...not a lot of nutrition or a lot of food. When you eat veggies as the main course with meat/cheese/bread as the flavoring you not only eat fewer calories but you can eat a whole lot more food. So now, instead of pizza I might have an entire container of sliced mushrooms, cooked, drained, topped with pizza sauce, a slice of mozzarella cheese, and a big huge pile of mixed lettuces with ranch dressing. That's around 400 calories where as two slices of medium cheese pizza from pizza hut is more than 400 calories.

Being able to eat the portions you crave makes this whole healthy eating for a life time a lot more manageable in my opinion. I'm kind of from the camp that believes in lots of veggies and little meat/dairy/processed foods for optimal health.

I notice that your intake of carbs and sugar is quite high. You can reset your appetite in 3 days by simply dropping your carbs and sugars way down. For three days, keep your carb intake at 75g or less and keep your sugar intake at maximum 15g. That means you will eat lots of veggies/protein/fats at each meal....so stirfry, soup, salad omelet, fish, chicken, beef. Get out your cutting boards and an assortment of non-starchy veggies...in the context of protein and fat, veggies are very filling and satisfying. It's not even important for those three days to have low-calorie days. Your appetite will naturally come back down to an appropriate level in those 3 days, as will your calorie intake.

I totally get the problem with portion control. Although I have changed what I eat and am making better choices as far as what I eat, I have trouble limiting certain foods to one portion. Like today I came home starving and ate a whole bag of black bean chips (5 servings in a bag) and half a container of hummus. It was just so yummy I couldn't stop myself. Well I am paying for it now, I got like a weeks worth of fiber in one sitting. I hope I will learn my lesson and maybe record one portion in my diary before sitting down to a whole meal of bean filled foods

robingmurphy wrote: »

Ugh, my willpower is awful though. Is there some way I can build it up?

Stop making excuses for eating more than you should.

You just did it then.

"I'll just have some bread"

"I'll just have one more then I'll be good tomorrow"

"It's only one donut"

"It's not my fault, it's my willpower"

Today I had a tiny, tiny portion of salad that I thought would do nothing for me. Then I also had a 29g slice of Christmas loaf, and now I am feeling very full. Just a tiny salad and one piece of bread can indeed fill me up some. We'll continue learning the right portions for us throughout this journey we're on, I think.