Smaller portions or change your diet?

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  • fbchick51
    fbchick51 Posts: 240 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Both...

    I made it a point to address my nutrition and make that better...my diet when I started was sorely lacking in veg and fruit and I ate a lot of fattier cuts of red meat, pizza, Taco Bell, and drank a ton of soda. I didn't make wholesale changes overnight...I addressed things a bit at a time.

    Ditto! Aside from cutting out soda and making sure I got more fruits and vegetables in, one of my new favorite past times was taking my old favorites meals and finding ways to make them a bit healthier. By doing so, I haven't really needed to reduce my portion sizes all that much.

  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,750 Member
    If you're honest with yourself, you know why you gained weight. It may be too little exercise, servings that are too large, quality of food that you eat, too many meals out, too much alcohol, or too many sweets. If you address the cause of your weight gain, you should be able to lose it.

    In my case, I have a terrific sweet tooth. I could eat baked goods and ice cream every day. When I do, I always gain weight. To lose weight, I have to cut back, but not eliminate, sweets. Same with alcohol and restaurant meals. If I keep treats as something special, rather than everyday I can keep my weight under control.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I'm in the "both" camp too. Changing the way I eat has come with a few surprises. It has been a shift in attitudes and food environment as well as eating habits. I thought that in order to lose weight and keep it off, I'd have to be strict and rigid and cut out a range of foods, and sacrifice enjoyment, but it has been the opposite: I eat what I love, but in more appropriate portions for my body; more organized, as in regular meals and planned shopping trips; and enjoying my meals and paying more attention to what I eat. I eat the same things as always, but some things more regularly and other things more rarely, some things in larger portions, other things in smaller portions. I have ended up eating very similar to how I did when growing up, adjusted for availability, preferences and cooking skills. I'm no longer a slave to "have to feel full" - I eat what I need and enjoy feeling satisfied, not stuffed. Joining MFP in Dec '13, I made a pledge that I would never again eat food I don't like just because it's "healthy". It has been an exciting, educational and enjoyable experience. For the first time in my life, I have a healthy and stable weight, and after maintaining for 30 months now, I'm confident I can stay that way forever.

    Realizing all this made me realize some of the things that were going on before: I didn't "like" food because I tried to eat "healthy", which was boring food, and I ended up eating it in too large quantities just to try to get some enjoyment out of it; I felt like I had no control over my eating and that people "sabotaged" my efforts; that I "had to" eat up even though I was full or if someone offered; I felt "addicted" to all the foods I "couldn't" eat, etc. MFP and introspection has been an eye-opener!
  • Jadedinosaur
    Jadedinosaur Posts: 41 Member
    A combination. For example, I still have pasta with cheese and smoked sausage and chilli pesto frequently (probably at least a few days a week), but now I also add in (frozen)spinach and (frozen) sweetcorn and mushrooms and onions and peppers and whatever other veg I feel like throwing in, maybe some cucumber and spring onion too. Instead of cooking half a 500g bag of pasta, I weigh out a sensible portion which fits my calories (this varies depending on other food through the day) and weigh out everything else to go into it. So it's a smaller portion of the things I used to eat, but it also has other stuff in it to add in some extra flavours and nutrition etc.
  • jennypapage
    jennypapage Posts: 489 Member
    edited April 2017
    A bit of both. if i'm planning to eat a very high in calories food, the rest of my meals with be low in calories so i can add the volume. Sometimes my dinner will be half of my daily calories and a very small portion. The rest of my meals will be a lot of vegetables, a low cal. protein (like fish),probably some milk with protein powder, just so i can balance my nutrition a bit.Needless to say these meals do not happen often, because like you i like to feel full (but not stuffed)when i eat.
    If i want to eat something high cal. incorporated in a meal (like pasta/rice/potatoes) i always make sure i leave enough calories to be able to eat an adequate portion of that food. Eating half a potato is not enough (but one big potato is enough)to satisfy me.
  • mamba
    mamba Posts: 8 Member
    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    schtump wrote: »
    So I ask, what works better for you, eating what you love, but small portions or finding alternatives that you can live with, but eating more.

    Well, a lot of the foods I love are high volume foods, like vegetables, so it isn't really one or the other.

    For me it was a mix, though.

    I didn't cut out anything, but I looked at my diet and lowered the things I thought I would miss least, for satiety and nutrition as well as having a satisfying diet (and I honestly think this IS what is meant when people say eat what you like, just less, since it's common sense).

    I realized I was adding more fat calories than I needed to, so I cut that back -- added less oil, used cheese more sparingly, focused on lean meats more often, with bonus points for things like shrimp that are really low cal soures of protein. I also cut back on starches I was eating just because they were there (I don't care about bread that much) and decreased portions of things like pasta and potatoes since I was just as satisfied with less. Basically I cut back on fat and carbs some, not protein, but it was meal specific. I always ate lots of veg, but added more so the amount of food on my plate if anything increased.

    I also realized I was eating some degree of stuff I didn't care about between meals, because it was there, largely things that were at work (if someone gave us cookies, I should eat them because they were there, if stressed, get peanut M&Ms from the bowl that was out, if stuck there late, eat some Kind bars). I stopped that. Not against including some sweets in my diet, but I want it to be things I actually love and will eat less of them in order to fit in the good things.

    I also had a habit of overeating at restaurants, which I did at least weekly. I stopped being so indulgent as it is weekly and now order more mindfully and don't think I need an app or dessert and if portions are big I bring some home. Some things I LOVE and don't want to eat in small amounts (Indian food, Ethiopian) so I get them monthly or less, and often combine with a long run or other long workout. I originally tried to order carefully at my favorite Indian place (no naan, little rice, tandoori chicken) and then said forget it, I'll go less and skip lunch before or otherwise make plans to just eat what I want and fit it in.

    All of this.

    I already ate a very healthy diet before starting to lose weight. I was a 210 pound whole foods vegetarian whose carb consumption was limited to beans and vegetables. I just ate too much and had a very heavy hand with olive oil.

    In fact, I've added some things back into my diet since I've started losing weight like the occasional candy or cookie depending on my calorie allowance for the day and whether I'm in a maintaining phase or losing phase.

    I've always looked at this process as a life-long endeavor at looked at ways to maximize my satisfaction with my diet in terms of nutrition, satiety, and satisfaction.

    I've had a weight problem for years (since I was a pre-teen). I've dieted on and off for over 40 years. I've gone the route of cutting things out completely and found that over the long haul, it doesn't work. There are some foods I only ever eat once or twice I year, mind you, but I haven't cut them out of my life completely. If something is tasty enough that I still want it in my life, I fit it in either by having it very infrequently (boardwalk caramel corn and french fries that I only have on vacation or my mother's cheesecake recipe that I only make at Christmas) or in smaller portions every now and then (a Snickers bar or Reece's Cups on days when I do a long run that I buy in a single portion going through the grocery check out line).

    Hi, are you me? Lol. You basically just described why I'm 40 lbs overweight. People keep saying "but you eat healthy!" and I'm like yeah, but I don't portion out my food. It's math, if I eat a handful of walnuts for a snack, that's a whole lot of calories and fat on top of my regular meals. That's why I'm not losing weight. Thanks for driving the point home for me. I am not going to justify my weight any longer by saying "yeah but I eat only whole foods".
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