Portion Control
Options
KellenRae
Posts: 8 Member
Hey all,
First, I just want to say hi and thanks to everyone here. I just joined a couple days ago, and while my weight loss goal isn't too terribly much, everyone here is so supportive and helpful. I've been reading and smiling and nodding in agreement. You guys rock! Keep up the hard work and helpful words.
Now, on to my topic...
As I said, I've only been reading for a couple days, but I don't see much about portion control.
I see lots of people asking about tips and tricks and I've found that portion control is usually my biggest "trick".
I'm sure everyone has heard that after eating it takes your brain about 20 minutes to register that you are full. My advice is to work WITH your brain, not against it.
Here's what I do: (using dinner as an example because this works best for dinner)
First of all, once dinner is prepared, I leave the food in the kitchen. I do not bring it to the dinner table to serve myself there. I prepare my plate there in the kitchen and then go out to the table (or wherever) to eat.
When I'm preparing my plate, I place the food on my plate and look at it. What is my first thought? Do I look at it and think, "I'm pretty hungry, I don't think that's going to be enough."? If so, I walk away at that point. I do NOT keep adding food to my plate until I think it's enough. I WANT to think it won't be enough.
Then, when I eat, I try to eat slowly. There are many things you can do to aid this: chew your food 25 times, put down your fork between bites, cut bites off the steak as you eat them rather than cutting it all up at once and then eating.
I try to occasionally check with my stomach as I eat. Do I feel full yet? But to be honest, I usually end up eating everything on my plate because I didn't put that much there to begin with.
The key is this: once I am done eating that serving I set my plate down. I continue the conversation with my boyfriend or focus entirely on the movie we're watching. I distract myself. Then, if I realize I'm still hungry, I can go back for a little more (key word: little). But since I've started doing this, I have yet to go back for more. I don't need it!
My body has time to realize I'm full, or at least satisfied and I don't ever go back for seconds. And because the food is in the kitchen, it makes it more of an effort to get up and go get the second helping rather than having it right there within reach.
I'm sure everyone has heard of this or something similar (a popular method is to use smaller plates), but in this day and age of extreme surgeries and bogus diet pills and crazy fad diets, I thought something this simple deserved to be pointed out (again) as a healthy option.
Eat what you want! Just limit how much of it you eat. Give your body time to register that you've eaten it before you consider getting more.
*shrugs* It works for me because I tend to eat fast and I'd eat way more than I needed before my body told me I was full.
Anyway, I'll shut up now.
Take care, and keep up the hard work. You're worth it!
First, I just want to say hi and thanks to everyone here. I just joined a couple days ago, and while my weight loss goal isn't too terribly much, everyone here is so supportive and helpful. I've been reading and smiling and nodding in agreement. You guys rock! Keep up the hard work and helpful words.
Now, on to my topic...
As I said, I've only been reading for a couple days, but I don't see much about portion control.
I see lots of people asking about tips and tricks and I've found that portion control is usually my biggest "trick".
I'm sure everyone has heard that after eating it takes your brain about 20 minutes to register that you are full. My advice is to work WITH your brain, not against it.
Here's what I do: (using dinner as an example because this works best for dinner)
First of all, once dinner is prepared, I leave the food in the kitchen. I do not bring it to the dinner table to serve myself there. I prepare my plate there in the kitchen and then go out to the table (or wherever) to eat.
When I'm preparing my plate, I place the food on my plate and look at it. What is my first thought? Do I look at it and think, "I'm pretty hungry, I don't think that's going to be enough."? If so, I walk away at that point. I do NOT keep adding food to my plate until I think it's enough. I WANT to think it won't be enough.
Then, when I eat, I try to eat slowly. There are many things you can do to aid this: chew your food 25 times, put down your fork between bites, cut bites off the steak as you eat them rather than cutting it all up at once and then eating.
I try to occasionally check with my stomach as I eat. Do I feel full yet? But to be honest, I usually end up eating everything on my plate because I didn't put that much there to begin with.
The key is this: once I am done eating that serving I set my plate down. I continue the conversation with my boyfriend or focus entirely on the movie we're watching. I distract myself. Then, if I realize I'm still hungry, I can go back for a little more (key word: little). But since I've started doing this, I have yet to go back for more. I don't need it!
My body has time to realize I'm full, or at least satisfied and I don't ever go back for seconds. And because the food is in the kitchen, it makes it more of an effort to get up and go get the second helping rather than having it right there within reach.
I'm sure everyone has heard of this or something similar (a popular method is to use smaller plates), but in this day and age of extreme surgeries and bogus diet pills and crazy fad diets, I thought something this simple deserved to be pointed out (again) as a healthy option.
Eat what you want! Just limit how much of it you eat. Give your body time to register that you've eaten it before you consider getting more.
*shrugs* It works for me because I tend to eat fast and I'd eat way more than I needed before my body told me I was full.
Anyway, I'll shut up now.
Take care, and keep up the hard work. You're worth it!
0
Replies
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I'm going to try your suggestion about not having the food on the table. My biggest problem is grazing for 20 minutes after I have finished my meal.:grumble:0
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My biggest problem is grazing for the 20 minutes I spend cooking the meal... :frown:0
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I do the small plate thing. I also come on here when I figure out what we are having for dinner and figure out how much one serving is. Then, I get out the measuring cups and spoons and measure out 1 serving. I am retraining my brain to know what a real serving is compared to the pile I used to put on my plate. If, after I eat it all and I eat a lot slower now, I still feel hungry, I will have more salad or more of another veggie we are having.
Hope that helps
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Nutrition Facts For Foods!0 -
My biggest problem is grazing for the 20 minutes I spend cooking the meal... :frown:
Okay now I up to 40 minutes of grazing!:embarassed:0 -
I get hungry while cooking too and so yesterday while I was preparing dinner, I ate 1 serving of some peanuts and drank a bottle of water. It helped me satisfy the hunger and i did not eat nearly as much for supper because I wasnt ravenous0
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This is where MFP has really helped me out.
Since I've been keeping track of calories with MFP. And actually measureing my food portions into the serving size. I've found it's not so much what I've been eating. It's going back and getting that second helping that was the killer....and cutting out the grazing. Knowing how many calories are in what food previusly I would graze enough calories for a meal, and then eat the meal!
I've started trusting my calories allowed + my excersise calories and eating them, occasionally coming in a few hundred under I've been making steady progress towards my goal. If I do that I'm not hungry, but neither do I eat so much that I feal bloated and lathargic.
The other reason I trust my calories is there have been a few days where I've had a deficit of 2000+ calories. (usually on weekends where I swim, bike, or play golf all afternoon) It's hard to eat that much in an evening. What I've noticed is the next day I simply cannot eat enough to keep from being hungry. So Even though I'll go over for that day, I'm still ahead for the week from the day before.
As long as this continue's to work for me, this how I will do things.0 -
Then, when I eat, I try to eat slowly. There are many things you can do to aid this: chew your food 25 times, put down your fork between bites, cut bites off the steak as you eat them rather than cutting it all up at once and then eating.
An "eat slowly" tip I learned... do not place the next bite on your fork/spoon until you have completely chewed AND swallowed the one that's already in your mouth.0 -
I cook enough for ONE meal. No second helpings. My 1/2 a chicken breast, small salad, 2 oz of whole wheat pasta with 1 tsp pesto sauce, plus 1/2 cup of steamed summer squash fills a plate to overflowing and the cooking pots are empty. I measure and/or weight everything. I log everything. If I happen to be eating something where I want more than 1 serving, I log it and face that I did so. For example, I made shrimp scampi for dinner last night but I didn't think 9 medium shrimp would be enough, so I cooked 14. Turns out, 9 would have been plenty, but because I made 14, I ate 14 :grumble: (and logged 1.5 servings on MFP).0
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My biggest problem is grazing for the 20 minutes I spend cooking the meal... :frown:
:laugh: Agreed, curse of being the cook of the house. I wish I wasn't such a good cook too, then I wouldn't want to eat it.0
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