Portion Freedom

Hey guys!

One of the common “rules” for healthy eating is “portion control.” I prefer to call it portion awareness because it’s really not so much about control, but about being cognizant of how much you’re eating and of what. Once you learn this, you see that it’s really not about control, but about freedom!

Appropriate portion sizes vary according to the food in question, the person’s health goal (lose weight, maintain weight, gain weight, etc.) and the person’s lifestyle. For instance, my portions might appear rather wacky to some of my non-veg counterparts. I eat ginormous bowls of food at meals. No, I’m serious — I use a freaking mixing bowl to hold my meals! Why?! Because I can literally have one pound of cauliflower for the same amount of calories as 1.50 ounces of a Whole Wheat bagel from Panera Bread (that’s about a third of the serving size). Also? In my 1lb of cauliflower I get 11.3 grams of fiber versus the 2g in the 1.50 ounces of bagel. The other thing? I get FULL off the cauliflower whereas I simply get teased and annoyed with the bagel morsel. Just sayin’.

I can’t deny, however, that it is rather challenging these days to be cognizant of how much you’re eating and what that translates to when portion sizes have gradually shifted from reflecting a typical serving size for a healthy appetite to portion sizes fit for King Kong. But since that’s what a lot of us are now used to, it’s hard to take two steps back and really stare in awe at the massive amount of crap we’re served (and serve ourselves). Check this out, for instance:
[source]

Want some tips on how to become more aware of what sort of portions you should be eating? Sure you do!

• Read the nutritional labels, hone in on “serving size.” Sure, you look at a chips package and see that it’s 140 calories. Sweet! Then you look closer and see that it’s per serving and that there are actually three servings in that one little bag. D’oh! That means if you eat the entire bag, you’ve had 420 calories and however much fat, sodium etc. per serving TIMES THREE.
• Consider your cravings. Is it volume that you want? Sometimes you really want to sit down with a huge bowl of something – I get it. But consider that you can sit down with a small pack of M&Ms for 240 calories and 10g of fat OR eight-freaking cups of air-popped popcorn for the same amount of calories, 3g of fat and nearly 10g of fiber (and none of the artificial cancer-causing colors and additives!).
• Think before you reach. Are you at a buffet or social gathering and think you’re just going to munch? Yea…all that munching ends up directly on your ass. Just sayin’. Be conscious of what you’re eating — anything creamy, cheesy, oily, fried is going to give you the least bang for your calorie buck. If you’ll be satisfied having one fatty mozzarella stick versus eating the entire tray of raw veggies, then that better be one fine tasting stick. But, I get it – sometimes you want the gooey, fatty food – so portion out a piece and satisfy the rest of your hunger with veggies.
• Consider that most serving sizes at restaurants have enough calories for more than half of your daily suggested food consumption. Yea yea it’s Miss Grinch over here, but if you’re ordering food from a regular menu at a regular restaurant, chances are that the food served to you could feed a family of four. For instance, I used to eat a huge enchilada plate at a Mexican restaurant, right? Then I’d search “enchilada” in Calorie King and be like okay “yea one enchilada is generally about 250 calories — good deal!” I wouldn’t consider that the one enchilada I had at the Mexican restaurant was probably a POUND whereas the descriptions on Calorie King usually averaged around 4 ounces. Also, there are two factors to consider in unison — portion and portion of what. You can happily make your own turkey burger at home with a thick patty and big buns (*SirMixaLot tune entering my head…*), but consider that a turkey burger from The Cheesecake Factory has over 1300 calories [see here]. So, be aware of both portion sizes and also do your research ahead of time. It seems like restaurants inject fat and calories into their foods in mind-boggling ways so that it becomes impossible to gauge how many calories and grams of fat are in their portions unless you find the nutritional information. Don’t leave yourself in the dark – you’ll only turn the light on later to shriek with horror.
• Start portioning out your food just to get an idea. A long time ago I started portioning out my own snacks just to re-learn what healthy portion sizes are. So, I’d take a bag of my favorite whole-wheat pretzels, for example, and portion out one serving (about 10 pretzels for 100 calories). That way I could start visualizing what portion sizes should really look like for my particular purpose (initially weight loss). I would also recommend getting a small kitchen scale so that you can get accustomed to what portion sizes look like for meats, tofu, etc. You’ll be very surprised how small one serving of meat really is.
• Verify how much a serving really is. This is me exerting my Type-A-OCD on you, but sometimes, for fun , I like to weigh my food to see if a serving really is a serving. Allow me to clarify. If you get an English muffin, for example, and read that the serving size is one muffin for 160 calories, there’s also another number to consider. The weight. It’ll say the weight of the serving size. In this case – 35g. The thing is that the nutritional information is based on the weight, not on the volume. So, while the muffin’s stats are calculated based on an average weight of 35g, your particular muffin might weigh a little less…or a bit more. My English muffins have typically weighed in at 5g more which has translated to 23 calories more per muffin. Sure, that’s insignificant at one muffin. But it’s just another thing to keep in mind if you want to get all psycho with knowledge like I like to

Think I’m annoyingly optimistic when I say it’s about portion freedom? Check out this “What 300 Calories Looks Like” page from Sparkpeople here - it truly shows how you can control the quantity and quality of food you eat to fit your goals. It also shows how you can be duped!

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: beginner's steps