It's not the quality, it's the quantity
 

I eat a pretty balanced diet with lots of the good stuff like veggies and lean meats.

The problem isn't what I eat, it's how much. Too much!

Does anyone else struggle not really with eating lousy food but more with just eating too much of the good stuff? Any advice?

I did! I found that adding in more veggies and eating ever 2 hours (with very strict portion control and calorie counting) really did the trick for me. It kept my blood sugar level and helped me learn what a portion really looked like.

How did you determine your "portions" for veggies? Seriously, you'd be amazed at how many vegetables I can put away. I'm like a... panda. Roly-poly like a panda, too!

I'm With You on this Issue!
 

I do, I do. I basically eat a very very healthy diet, but just too much. I mean 3 oz of any meat doesn't do it for me! Even if you are eating just too much fruit, it will mean a weight gain. This is frustrating for me. I solved the problem for a while by feedin some of everything to the dog, but now she needs FatPupsona Diet:( I do know what you mean - Kashi bars are great, but you can't eat three of em and have a good result LOL:^: If you saw Oprah today she admitted that her old vice was potato chips, her new vice was organic, whole grain blue corn chips..but no matter how much better a choice that it, you still can't eat a bag a day. RATS.

The ONLY thing that helps me is to religiously use Fit Day. I have to weigh or measure everything BUT I am getting better at knowing how much of something is, so knowing quantity is easier. At first FitDay is a pain because so many products aren't in the database but you can build your own list of custom foods using the nutrition label info. When it is a mixed food, it is harder to figure out.

FitDay then gives you a running total of carbs/protein/fat/alcohol in pie chart plus a chart that gives you total fiber, how you are meeting RDA nutritional requirements etc. It has a lot of other features like activity log that then calculates calories burned vs. calories eaten, a journal, a daily mood inventory, lots of other charts and graphs. AND IT IS FREE www.fitday.com
Sometimes if I am not sure of nutrients for custom food entry, I also use www.nutritiondata.com - another terrific site.

My goal is healthy equalling weight loss, so fiber, nutrients, glycemic load etc are very important to me as well. I also eat SIX times a day. Breakfast snack lunch snack dinner snack, so it helps me plan out my day. Anyhow hope this helps:hug:

I bought a scale, and I used Fitday to record all of my food - every bit - that helped me realize that some of my veggie servings were actually 3 or 4 servings at a time. By learning the calorie count of different veggies, I realized that I could eat as much spinach as I wanted, but I had to weigh and measure things like baby carrots because I was prone to overeating them!

That being said, unless you are eating a lot of starchy veggies (corn, potatoes, etc), the veggies aren't your problem. It is the other things that are adding up to too many calories.

I really like the concept of 4ths. 1/4 of your plate should be bread/grain, 1/4th protein, and 1/2 veggies.

The key is to use SMALL plates!!!!

Thanks to you both. Small plates! Eating more often! I think that will help me get my stomach reset to normal portions rather than the "I'll eat a pound of vegetables and a big hunk of chicken breast and three oranges and a bucket of lentils..."

I've always loved food, ALL food, and good, real food the best. I really didn't "waste" my time on fast food if I could help it, or desserts either. It's funny when a doctor would tell me that I could lose a lot of weight just by giving up sweets, I laughed because I didn't eat them (although I learned I was eating a lot of hidden carbohydrates and sugar in things like barbecue sauce).

I'm using a reduced-carb exchange plan, because it limits portions and the structure helps ensure balance, and through it I'm learning that I certainly thought my diet was a lot more balanced that it really was. I have the hardest time getting in dairy. Also, my husband noticed before I did - but when I'm not using my exchange sheets, I tend to go on food group binges. I'll have a day when I eat tons of veggies, another I'll have a craving for meat, etc. It's often healthy food, but not (at least over the course of a day or two) balanced.

The exchange plan is really helping me with that. The only exchanges that I don't worry about going over my target are my (nonstarchy) veggies. I love veggies so I have no problem getting in my 4 veggie servings (veggie servings for exchange plans for most veggies are 1 cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked), and if I want more, I eat more. Starch servings, fat, and even sometimes fruit are the food groups that I most easily overeat if I'm not paying attention.

I HAVE to have a portion control component of some type to my food plan. Calorie counting or exchange counting (which is basically a short-hand calorie counting since each exchange has a similar calorie count).

Hey Eiluj, I overate myself into obesity by eating good quality, healthy foods in excess. The key for me was understanding what a "serving" or "portion" really is for a particular food and measuring/weighing foods for a long time so my body could get used to that.

I think you'll find that 4 oz. of boneless, skinless chicken breast, 3 oz. of green beans, 3 oz. of asparagus, a salad with 2 TBS lowfat dressing, and 1/2 cup of starch (rice or potatoes) is a perfectly satisfying meal, once you've done it for awhile. (Total is around 400 cals.) Instead of butter on the vegetables, use some of the lowfat dressing. I like a little low-sodium soy sauce on the rice also. Or, if you prefer butter, just remember it's 100 fat calories per TBS and measure it accordingly.

Good luck!
Jay

I totally 2nd the smaller dinnerware idea. I eat cereal every morning for breakfast. I went to my walmart and got the smallest cereal bowl I could find in the dinnerware aisle, and it fits about half of the cereal I used to eat. I sometimes use dessert plates for my dinner plates because of the size difference and the mind trick that I am eating a full plate of food works occasionally.

Thanks, everyone! I'm going to measure, measure, measure, retrain, retrain, retrain. :)

I feel like I've got a slightly easier road ahead of me just because I do already love vegetables and healthier foods. Still, measure, measure, measure, retrain, retrain, retrain!

If you prepare your veggies with the 5 calorie margarine and a little salt and pepper, you can eat a ton. If you can manage to eat them raw, eat all you like of the lower calorie ones. :)

I love to steam them, then eat them with popcorn salt, the butter kind. Mmm.

Before I was counting calories my plan was to eat only when I was hungry and only about a cup of food at a time (leafy veggies like spinach were exempt from the 1 cup rule as long as they only had 1 serving of dressing).

After I ate my one cup of food I would wait for 1 hour. If I felt physically hungry an hour later I would eat another cup of food.

I had no restrictions on what went into the cup of food - the purpose was mostly to learn to eat only when hungry and to get used to seeing a smaller amount of food as normal.

Smaller plates help a lot too!

Sounds like a very interesting experiment.

This is only day 3, but already perhaps a tiny bit of my retraining is working. I ate breakfast, then was having a brunchy meal of steamed vegetables and some lentil soup, and I could feel myself getting full much sooner than just a couple of days ago. Hurrah!

Eating at work is much more regimented than at home, which is great, but it's also so conspicuous. I feel like I'm eating kind of in people's faces, if that makes any sense.