Portion Controlled Eating…A New Habit To Try
Do you ever overeat and then later regret it? You get that bloated feeling that is just awful. Or you get upset with yourself for overeating because you knew you would pay for it later. We then ask ourselves Why do I do this to myself? I do this too. More often than I would like to admit. So I got to thinking about portion-controlled eating because I am using the My Fitness Pal app, which breaks things down by portions. The app forces you to portion. That’s when I realized that (the My Fitness Pal app) they might be onto something key here, which gave me an idea…to portion control my eating. After all, when you buy something, it has the nutritional values on the package by portion. (Ok, so don’t make fun of me. I get excited over the little things). Being able to portion food is already made to be fairly easy for us already with the nutritional value tables on packages, and the app helps you to portion pretty easy.
Portion controlling everything except for plain fruits and vegetables(as long as they are raw or or steamed), is what I am going to try this year, and then track my eating in the app. For sweets and carbs, since I have a major sweet tooth, and love carbs, and these should be eaten in moderation, I will be very controlled with these items.
Here is a few portion control habits to develop:
1. When filling my plate with food, choose small portions(1/4c) of carbs, starches, and meat, but 1/2c to 1c portions of vegetables. These amounts can be adjusted down even more.
2. When having dessert, eat 1/4 of what you would normally eat, and eat it slowly, to savor each and every bite. For example, if you bake cookies, eat just 1 cookie, not 4. For a candy bar, eat one-fourth of the candy bar, not the whole thing.
3. Pre-portion food ahead of time, so you can guarantee you don’t over-eat. Use cute sauce containers and handy plastic or glass storage containers, bento boxes, or silicone baggies for snacks.
4. Use the app to your advantage, by taking their portions as the amounts to portion your food.
This method is one I am working on everyday. I have heard many people who have lost a lot of weight just by portion-controlling what they are eating. In other words, eating less. Pushing the plate back. Snacking less on bad food and eating less of sweets.
Share your progress in the comments! What is working and what are you doing to help make this process more doable?