Portion Control
rubyslipperss1
Posts: 31 Member
Is anyone else doing portion control for weight loss? I use the Portion Perfection bowls and plates for a meal that has individual types of food (like potatoes, meat, etc), frozen foods I do by serving size and for casserole type food, I add all ingredients together and figure calories by the number of servings i get out of the dish. I also use a mini cutlery set by Godinger that i got from Amazon.com. The smaller plate and utensils help a lot!
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Replies
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i use a scale to weigh my food portions, in meal sized calorie batches (approx 350-400 cals per) and freeze up a week or so at a time.
Portion control is my secret weapon to my own weight loss success.9 -
Using measuring cups, bowls, etc. is very imprecise for solid foods. Weighing food using a food scale is far more precise.8
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rubyslipperss1 wrote: »Is anyone else doing portion control for weight loss? I use the Portion Perfection bowls and plates for a meal that has individual types of food (like potatoes, meat, etc), frozen foods I do by serving size and for casserole type food, I add all ingredients together and figure calories by the number of servings i get out of the dish. I also use a mini cutlery set by Godinger that i got from Amazon.com. The smaller plate and utensils help a lot!
That sounds like a great plan! It would help you learn to visualize proper portions for home and when you eat out.
I just had a bowl of cornflakes, topped with a sliced banana. Something about it reminded me of how my mother only ever used a half banana, then I remembered that our cereal bowls were about one third the size of mine. I've just gradually gotten used to bigger and bigger portions of everything.
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It's definitely good to use them to visualize, but be careful. When I first started losing weight, I was using something like this but also using a food scale to make sure I was at a deficit. If I would have went by the containers alone, I would have been undereating by hundreds of calories. However, there are people who will try to cram as much food as possible into the containers and they could easily be overeating with the containers.6
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Just remember the size of the container doesn't account for what you put in it. A bowl full of ice cream has 3 times more calories than the bowl full of chopped pineapple. They are both very sweet but one is much healthier and less calories.
Portion control can be a good start but eventually you will likely start putting things in the containers that aren't healthy or reduced calorie. Opt instead to read nutrition labels, measure and weigh foods.13 -
Just remember the size of the container doesn't account for what you put in it. A bowl full of ice cream has 3 times more calories than the bowl full of chopped pineapple. They are both very sweet but one is much healthier and less calories.
Portion control can be a good start but eventually you will likely start putting things in the containers that aren't healthy or reduced calorie. Opt instead to read nutrition labels, measure and weigh foods.
While true, the smaller bowl will hold less ice cream than the bigger bowl, thus lowering portion size as well. If a person was eating a large bowl of fruit, just because they switch to a smaller bowl, doesnt mean they will automatically put ice cream in it instead. Using a smaller dish overall is a very good tactic. They will just eat less of what they already are eating.7 -
I think its a great approach but being a precise spreadsheet control freak type of person, I prefer to weigh and log everything. If it works for you, then it can't be wrong !1
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When I first started weight loss I was at about 220 pounds and had over 70 pounds to lose. I used cups and smaller portions and I guessed on calories for that first 40 pounds and it worked fine. It's easy to lose weight when you have a lot to lose.
When I got within 30 pounds of my goal, that didn't work anymore. I then bought a digital food scale for $20 on amazon, and was able to lose the rest of my weight by keeping a close log of my food and exercise. It's a lot harder and requires more vigilance when there isn't a lot of weight to lose.
The good part was that I could relax and eat as much as I needed instead of over-restricting. A food scale is a very liberating tool.9 -
It’s another method of achieving a calorie deficit. I do this with my own one cup and half cup volume containers much of the time. My nutritional goals are based on getting a specific number of servings of certain food groups within a calorie range. I recognize that this method is imprecise for calorie counting, but I am still losing weight (albeit slowly). I am now within 10 lbs from being a healthy BMI. For me, I prefer this method because it is something I find easy and it feels sustainable. I believe this will serve me well once I reach maintenance.3
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cmriverside wrote: »
The good part was that I could relax and eat as much as I needed instead of over-restricting. A food scale is a very liberating tool.
This !3 -
cmriverside wrote: »When I first started weight loss I was at about 220 pounds and had over 70 pounds to lose. I used cups and smaller portions and I guessed on calories for that first 40 pounds and it worked fine. It's easy to lose weight when you have a lot to lose.
When I got within 30 pounds of my goal, that didn't work anymore. I then bought a digital food scale for $20 on amazon, and was able to lose the rest of my weight by keeping a close log of my food and exercise. It's a lot harder and requires more vigilance when there isn't a lot of weight to lose.
The good part was that I could relax and eat as much as I needed instead of over-restricting. A food scale is a very liberating tool.
Yes, measuring cups always stressed me out. I was always wondering how tightly to pack them. I also find using a food scale liberating.
And I don't have to measuring wash cups and spoons!2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
Yes, measuring cups always stressed me out. I was always wondering how tightly to pack them. I also find using a food scale liberating.
And I don't have to measuring wash cups and spoons!
Scale's a huge timesaver, too, compared to cups/spoons, once a person figures out the tricks, for reasons well beyond the washing up.4 -
i weigh my food on a scale.
guarantee you i could fill ANY container with more than my daily allotment of calories
not to mention special bowls dont account for the butter, oils, other high calories items that pack a punch in small quantities6 -
Slowfaster wrote: »
That sounds like a great plan! It would help you learn to visualize proper portions for home and when you eat out.
I just had a bowl of cornflakes, topped with a sliced banana. Something about it reminded me of how my mother only ever used a half banana, then I remembered that our cereal bowls were about one third the size of mine. I've just gradually gotten used to bigger and bigger portions of everything.
Invest in the Portion Perfection kit on Amazon! It is $50 but worth every penny! The book is great and the portion control dishes help so much. I still do a lot of measuring with my kitchen scale, depends on the food. One of the most helpful things to me is eating off the smaller plate with my mini-cutlery set. The book talks a lot about how a portion has increased over the years.
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callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
guarantee you i could fill ANY container with more than my daily allotment of calories
This had me laughing out loud. I have played that game--"It's such a small serving. A little chocolate sauce, maybe some caramel, oh, and a "few" peanuts won't make a big difference . . . " And worse
The games we play--and yet, we know darn well what we are doing most of the time, don't we?
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rubyslipperss1 wrote: »
Invest in the Portion Perfection kit on Amazon! It is $50 but worth every penny! The book is great and the portion control dishes help so much. I still do a lot of measuring with my kitchen scale, depends on the food. One of the most helpful things to me is eating off the smaller plate with my mini-cutlery set. The book talks a lot about how a portion has increased over the years.
I guess you missed the response right above yours - most of us could get more than our daily allotment of calories into any container/kit!0
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