I'm sure someone in the world must have the same issues. I don't binge. I'm not an emotional eater. I don't eat sweets, snack between meals or eat just before I go to sleep. I just like to eat. Breakfast, lunch and dinner -- I eat like I haven't eaten in a week. They tell you -- eat slow so that your brain has the opportunity to realize that you're full. Well, I routinely take at least 1/2 an hour to eat, regardlessd of what I'm eating. I savor my food and enjoy every bite.

When I over-serve myself, I think to myself, it's going to take awhile to eat this and I'm going to enjoy every bite. I recently started eating salad - no dressing, just a little oil and vinegar -- thought it would help fill me up but no -- it's just become something else to eat in addition to my normal meals.

I've been going to the gym religiously almost every day and walking over 4 miles a day. I have lost about 18 lbs and gained some nice muscle but it's not enough. I know that with the amount of exercise I'm doing, I should have dropped more weight by now but I just can't cut my portions. I've stopped the fast food and it has made a difference but I don't know if I have the willpower to cut what I eat in half.

Does anybody else just eat for the love of eating?

YES!!! Absolutely! I LOVE to eat. Everything about it. I would say I'm an "emotional" eater, but it's not just tied to emotions, it's just my favorite thing to do! I really appreciate food, you know? But, for me, the only thing that works is calorie counting. Cutting my food in half would not really have ever been an option for me, I just wouldn't feel satisfied. With calorie counting, I feel like I'm challenging myself to come up with new ways to make food that tastes good and is filling that fits into my allowance for the day. It's kind of...well, fun. And I can still appreciate food-maybe now even more. Like take rice for example. I never thought much about rice. Sure, it was a good starch to serve with certain meals, and I liked it, but it was just kind of a background to whatever else I was serving. Now, I don't serve it very often, and when I do, I am very careful about my portion size, so I really have come to appreciate how much I like rice- I even crave it sometimes!

I think the salads are a good idea, but just start changing around the types of foods you're serving with them to be less calorie dense but still satisfying. If you're not interested in measuring/counting everything yet, I would start by limiting myself to one serving of starchy/ fatty foods at your meal and actually measure that.

Yup - love the sensation of a full mouth, the act of chewing, all the flavors and textures and scents. Would contentedly eat my way around the world, sampling every strange cuisine out there! Issues with salty/crunchy triggers aside, food is definitely a blissful pursuit. And because I am married to an outstanding chef who does most of our cooking, calorie-counting is extremely complex. When I was truly serious about dropping pounds, I did it ... but there was a lot of estimating going on. Portion control really was a lot easier, because we were already involved in eating good, unprocessed foods. I switched down to a smaller dinner plate, and started with an easy 25% reduction in portion. Unlike you ... I did have to learn to eat slowly and put my fork down after each bite! I also agree that salads, big or small, don't fill me up faster. I don't think the sensation of fullness has anything to do with much of anything - I will continue to eat after being totally aware of being full. I let my smaller, empty plate tell me when to stop. Is it successful? Eh ... B+ maybe. But it does avoid the "I can't allow myself to have ..." and the "that's a BAD food" thing. The only deprivation, which really isn't a massive issue, is that I don't get to eat as much of everything as I would like. On the other hand, I do get to have everything!

It really has come down to a choice between eating the quantity I want, or the variety I want. I chose variety, and am back into a normal weight category with very little misery or feelings of deprivation. I don't know where your starting weight is or where you want to go, but if you can accept a slow, easygoing change that doesn't require beating yourself up and obsessing about the content of everything ... well, try it for a few weeks and see how it works for you. Good luck!

I didn't think I was the only one but I wonder sometimes. Funny you should mention rice. I am Cuban and in my family, we eat rice and beans every night accompanied by some kind of meat. In and of itself, rice and beans aren't a bad thing but I eat them to excess. Then when you add in the salad, the portuguese roll, the Pepsi and the meat, it adds up to a huge amunt of calories.

The one time I really put some effort in and cut my portions in half, I was successful, but left feeling unsatisfied. Not that I was still hungry but I felt like I didn't eat enough to really enjoy myself. I fully recognize when I'm full....I just keep going anyway.

I figured that I would be able to exercise enough so as lose weight and then be able to cut back on the exercising and just use it as maintenance but I don't know if that's going to work. I'm walking, on average, 25 miles a week and doing approx. 4 hours of strength training and still only losing about a pound a week. That should tell you what an issue I have with portion control.

Also, my love for Pepsi is probably at least 50% of my problem. I drink about 3 cans of soda a day, more or less -- that's 450 calories in soda alone. That's about 3200 calories a week - almost a lb worth. I've tried diet soda but I can't bring myself to drink it. I know that if I just kept drinking it, I would get used to it -- that's how I began with salad. But just the idea of diet soda and the after-taste won't allow me to even attempt to get used to it.

I feel like a baby crying over something so stupid when others have much more serious issues. I could solve a good portion of my problem by just giving up soda but, soda is my crack.

Have you tried diet dr. pepper? I think it's one of the best diet sodas out there. Of course no diet soda can compare to the full sugar versions, but you do get used to it. (Not that diet soda is good for you either, but I can't completely give up soda at this point either. So I guess artificial sweeteners wins the battle vs. sugar as the lesser of my two evils.)

Maybe you could try a "step down" method? If you drink 3 sodas a day now, replace one of them with diet (or even better, water) for a while, then step down to just one full sugar soda a day and so on.

I'm a calorie counter, so I found it relatively easy to give up sugary drinks in exchange for more food calories. I would much rather eat than drink my calories. My husband, on the other hand, will NOT give up his coke. He drinks about 2 a day now (it used to be much worse), but he's still lost weight by cutting back on other things. To each their own, I guess

M

I agree- I've never been a soda addict, but I used to HATE diet soda. Now I can really hardly tell the difference because I think I'm used to the artificial sweetener. Diet Root Beer and Diet Cream Soda have the least artificial taste, to me. That said: if you are exercising enough to lose 1 lb/week without changing what you're eating, I think you're winning! 1 lb a week loss is really great! If you could cut back on those sodas, you'd be up to almost 2 lbs a week just right there- man! That's pretty great. Maybe you could look at the sodas the same way- you don't have to NEVER drink them again, just for a while cut back, then when you're maintaining you can add them back in in a reasonable amount. Or, you could cut calories from elsewhere.

I think others have given you some good suggestions for dealing with soda. Maybe I just missed something (if so, sorry), but why do you want to halve portions of every food you eat? Since different foods have different numbers of calories and different percentages of protein, fat, and carbs, would it be easier to cut selectively so you're eating enough to keep you healthy without feeling too restricted, but that will still create a caloric deficit?

The reason why I want to halve my portion sizes is basically because I eat too much to begin with. My portions are not normal sized. I routinely serve myself twice the amount I should be eating. For example: it's said that when you eat steak, you should have 3 or 4 oz - when I eat steak, it's approx 8 to 10 ozs. And that's how I eat pretty much everything.

Dezzie, I agree that a pound a week weight loss without changing my eating habits is good. However that's with exercising 6 days a week, an hour and half a day -- intense exercise. I've been able to keep that up so far but I don't think I'll be able to sustain that forever. And I'm afraid that when I do slow down, I'll just pack the pounds right back on again.

It doesn't sound like halving your portions to what you "should" be eating has been a sustainable move for you, though. Instead of cutting everything across the board and feeling overly restricted, would it work better to look at reducing your portion sizes as a process and looking at how many calories you're eating and where you can cut things out most easily while still getting the nutrients you need? Little changes add up, and for me they've been easier and easier to maintain the more I do them.

OP, you said you don't "binge". But then you go on to say This is, in fact, a form of binge eating. And yes, I feel your pain!!! My own binge eating=fatness for me because I.LOVE.FOOD! I just love to eat. Healthy food, junk food, middle of the road food. Proteins. Carbs. Fats. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Yum-yum-gobble-gobble-gobble. It is SO HARD getting it and keeping it under control.

For me, it's a meal-by-meal scrutiny. I have to monitor everything that goes in my mouth. REMIND myself to EAT SLOWLY. STOP eating BEFORE I start to feel full. Wait 20 minutes. Then recalculate.

Is this easy? **** no. But I realize, given my past yo-yo dieting experience (30+ pounds 7 times in my adult life!!) that this is how I must approach my binge eating. It's the only way I can control it. And I HAVE TO CONTROL IT, or else, it will control me, and that is simply unacceptable!

I would probably look for different meals that are more filling for fewer calories (volume eating).

I love soups because they're so filling. I tend to like mine thicker (pureed vegetables help), and you can even eat a cup of low calorie soup with your reduced portion of more calorie dense foods. This, this, this, or this are great ideas for soups to eat as a pre-cursor to your meal.

I generally just measure/weigh my portions before eating, especially if they're calorie rich foods (1/2 cup rice, 4oz protein, etc) and stop. I don't always trust my instincts with food, so if I just tell myself that my portion is whatever is on my plate, I don't go back for more.

If you're continuously hungry after eating a "normal" portion, maybe incorporating scheduled snacks into your day could help too.