Portion Sizes

My biggest problem has never been junk food or snacking. It's that I eat too large a portion of regular, healthy food at mealtimes. Over the past couple of days I've learned something about portion sizes. Thought I'd share. This is totally my own experience, so YMMV.

First thing that happened: I was super hungry on Wednesday and took a rather large portion of food at dinner. I was full by the time I ate half of it, so I put the rest aside for the next day. It was plenty for dinner yesterday.

Second thing that happened: I've been walking to get coffee and bringing my bagel with me. Like most coffee places, this one mainly has pastries, muffins, bagels, etc.--in other words, bread-like stuff. They also have some "egg with other stuff" sandwiches. I don't want more bread-like stuff, since I already have a bagel, and the egg sandwiches are way too much food, so I haven't been buying anything extra, even if I'm hungry. And I've been fine until lunch.

What I learned: First--I learned that I can't tell how much food I need by how hungry I think I am. Second--I can't tell when I'm not hungry anymore by how full I think I am.

What to do: By accident I hit on a way to deal with it. For the first thing--put an average-sized portion on my plate because I don't finish large ones. For the second--don't have seconds until at least a half hour after eating the average-sized portion because, even if I think I'm still hungry, a half hour later I'm fine.

So, that's what I learned for myself this week. Even if I don't lose weight, this should keep me from gaining back what I've already lost because it's a good rule-of-thumb for me to help me to keep from eating too much at meals.

Have a great week, everyone!