Have you found that your perception of what a portion looks like is/was WAY off? I've been putting a lot of effort into making sure I know what different portions look like in MY dishes. I am just amazed (and kind of disgusted) at how far off my "servings" used to be. Most of my dishes are handmade (my mother is a potter) and I know now that what I was calling "one serving" of pasta or stew in one of my bowls was really closer to 3 cups. No wonder I never got hungry! I was literally stuffing myself. I measured out 1 cup of water in each of my glasses (we have 2 designs, one was a wedding gift and one is from when I was single) and I was pretty accurate with the small clear glasses but I was off by almost 6 oz in my guess as to the capacity of the largest glasses. It's just amazing. I'm really glad I took the time to do that, though. Now I know for sure how much milk I can put in a glass to have 1 cup.

Has anyone else had this kind of realization, that your perceptions of how much you were/are eating are just extremely innacurate?

Not me. Because I never worried about portions before. I just piled whatever on the plate it looked like my stomach would hold. Generally, my eyes were bigger than my belly too.

Once I started working on losing weight though, I began to measure and stuck with it for over a year until I felt I was comfortable enough with knowing the sizes without measuring all the time.

Oh I absolutely can relate. I didn't realize it was that bad off until I did Body For Life, and it was supposed to be palm sized protein and fist sized carbs. Wow, the hand certainly can grow when it hears the belly growl! I'm trying to measure and weigh as much as I can now. It isn't always feasible, but I try.

Definitely! . Once I started counting calories, I had to weigh and measure everything, and it looked like close to nothing! I know I used to eat 2-3X over and have no clue that I was doing it. I eat 1500 cal a day, and it still doesn't seem like much. So I really have to be in tune w/ my body and make sure it is really hungry before I eat. Funny thing is, I do feel full quicker now, just the desire to overeat is still there, I guess its just the taste of food I love. That is why I still measure, as my judgement is not so good.

Totally! I always figured a full bowl/plate was a serving! Of course it's more like 2-3x that! Unbelieveable how many calories I was unwittingly eating!

20 years ago when I joined WW I was shocked then... I still weigh and measure everything even if I over eat it but I measure it anyways ... It sure helps keep things in perspective. Now when I eat 1 cup of pasta I actually AM full, I don't really need 2-3cups...

Oh, **** yes. And it doesn't help, the way companies package things, either. For instance, plain large shredded wheat serving size is 2 wheats. Well the way they have it packaged is 3 large wheats bundled in paper envelopes and stacked inside the cereal box. So if you want to eat one serving, you have bother with wrapping the extra one. And of course it's easier to juts eat it. Also, those large pretzel sticks: 2 and a half is the servng size for the kind I get. Who the **** eats two and a half, who's gonna break it in half rather tha eat it? It's a conspiracy!

Absolutely! That's why I eat so many green vegies. You can eat a bathtub sized serving of spinach, romaine lettuce and brocolli for the same number of calories in 1/2 cup of pasta

Mel

I am convinced that I will have to measure and weigh my food for the rest of my life. The funny thing is that if I try to eyeball my portions now I almost always UNDERESTIMATE simply out of fear of eating too much. I cringe at the thought of the serving sizes I ate six months ago. And I can't even claim that I didn't realize my portions were too big. Obviously they were considering that I weighed 214 pounds! I just didn't care and so did not consciously gauge my portions at all - I just got what I WANTED. I do have a very vivid memory of eating at a work potluck and making an effort to scale back my portions because I felt awkward eating in front of coworkers. I sat down thinking that I was going to fool everyone into thinking that I didn't eat much (HA, HA!) only to find that I STILL had a loaded plate compared to everyone else. What a rotten feeling that was.

And I am just like Ilene. Even when I'm eating off of my plan I still keep up with my intake. When we went on vacation this spring I didn't have access to fitday and I found myself mentally noting amounts and calorie estimates. I usually don't even mean to do it as counting calories is just second nature now. As far as I am concerned, that is a good thing!

I am constantly amazed at how much food I can eat when I am not eating a proper diet. My daughter was over and watched me eat lunch the other day and said "Mom I can't believe that's all you eat now...you used to eat 3x as much as that!" Made me feel good and bad at the same time.

I agree. Measuring is a key to success. I recently did a calorie add up from an average day when I weighed 330 pounds..it was close to 4000 calories. Pretty mind boggling. Now I make sure to measure everything I consume in portions for only one person now instead of five, lol.

Okay. I just clicked on this, I see a response from someone who hasn't been on in AGES and I'm so excited to hear from them again, and then I notice that this thread is from 2005.

Chunkychic, where in the world did you dig up this thread from?????????

I am bored and been reading starting from the last post up, sorry.

No need to apologize.

And to answer the question, I think I was always AWARE of how oversized my portions were - but just didn't care.

Although I do have to say when I first started measuring, 4oz of chicken looked pretty darn skimpy.

I Found out I was underestimating. Which explained why I wanted more on certain things, and overestimating certain things. I love measuring cups. I actually have glasses I drink out of that I know by eyeing where the 1 cup mark is. I measure my rice and spaghetti and tuna helper.

is a serving of carbs really a fist? That seems so large, but then again I'm always amazed at how large a cup of tuna helper really is. I usually measure it twice.