Portion Size

Ever read the labels on the foods you eat? The serving size is generally half the amount or less than what we actually eat. What does this mean? It means every time we sit down and eat twice as much as we should we're eating twice as much calories, fat, sugar, etc.

There's a reason the FDA has chosen these specific serving sizes. It each person's choice to eat the suggested serving size or to eat more.

What's amazing is that when I eat the correct portion size I feel full - I don't feel hungry. Why? Because it is the right amount! Eating double the serving size contributes a lot to our obesity.

By eating 3 balanced meals with 2 snacks and exercising every day I now feel less constipated and don't encounter that uncomfortable overfull feeling.

I love milk and when I didn't follow the serving size I'd drink 3-4 glasses with my dinner. That means instead of:

140 calories
5 gm of fat

I was regularly consuming:

560 calories
20 gm of fat

Just by drinking too much milk with dinner! Now I pour myself one glass of milk and place the carton back in the fridge and pour myself a tall glass of water that I can reach for when I've finished my milk.

I still feel satisfied (for the most part - although I'd prefer at least 2 glasses of milk with dinner).

So making conscious decisions to serve myself the correct portion makes a difference.

I must admit that my family serves all the food on the table when we eat dinner and unconsciously I'll dig in and eat 2 or 3 servings because 1 - it tastes good and 2 - it's right in front of my face. I've heard that some people only serve the portion they want to eat and leave the pots on the stove - that makes sense. But since my family doesn't do that I'll have to be ever more conscious of what I'm doing - for example tonight I had 3 servings of spaghetti because it was right in front of me and we were talking and I didn't even think about it! It wasn't until after I had eaten it all that I realized what I had done!

Also I serve myself so I put on my plate the amounts of food I want to eat. And that way I can "clean" my plate and not feel wasteful. At restaurants, however, I often find myself feeling like I "must" clean my plate and I know I shouldn't because we all know the portion sizes in restaurants in America are about 3 times the size that we should be eating. But once again we're engaged in lively conversation and just shoving the food into our mouths without thinking. We should never feel obligated to finish what's on our plates are restaurants - after all that's what doggy bags are for!

The good thing about breakfast and lunch is that I automatically serve myself the right portion size because it's very easy to pour out 1 bowl of cereal and make 1 sandwich.

So I guess my point is we need to be aware of the amount of food we are eating. Just think how many calories a day we could save by doing just that!