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 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

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.