I tend to cheat a bit with the weighing and measuring. I weight stuff that I know I get wrong, pasta, rice, etc. I buy my meat cuts already measured, so if I know I am shooting for 100g chicken breast, I buy two 100g chicken breasts, one for me and one for the dh. I don't buy any single portion of meat any bigger than what I would eat, because then you end up with wastage or over eating.

I don't use measuring cups, because I am Australian, and our cup sizes are different from English which are different again from US ones and I get confused!! :dizzy: Doesn't take much to confuse me :D

I don't measure veggies at all, to me they are "free" (apart from starchy ones like potatoes) And then, I use my "buy your portion size" method, and buy little new potatoes, no big ones where there might be wasatage, or overeating going on.

After a while you will find you own methods of "cheating" or making things easier for yourself.

I've had those sort of dreams too!!! It's a good sign, it means you care about what you are eating, and how you are approaching your lifestyle change!

I never thought about my dream that way...kind of weird! Those are great tips for snacks and such! I usually just take out the box, and go...ok I'll eat till I'm full, and before I know it I have eaten the entire box of crackers!!!!! Terrible I know! Good idea about using size appropriate bowls, plates, etc. Never thought of that either...I hate seeing room on my plate! Haha!

Yep, the veggies are free, but the dip isn't! :lol: And I can't eat the carrots without the dip. :dizzy: Sooooooo, I take the proper serving size of baby carrots and get out that aforementioned condiment cup for the dip (1 ounce) and off we go.

The neat thing is I often run out of carrots before I run out of dip! I still count the full "ounce of dip" calories in my Fitday, even though I really only ate about 75% of it. I figure I probably under-estimated by a few calories somewhere else, so it helps even things out.

Portioning out veggies is also helping me to visualize what a "serving" of whatever should look like. It's helping me learn moderation. After all, it's only a short hop from eating "all I want" of baby carrots to eating "all I want" of potato chips...

I never realized that my not weighing or measuring or even counting calories was not a total time saver. I do spend lots of time choosing ingredients and preparing food (most everything I make is from scratch). Time well spent.. but the reality is that every plan or change takes time .. and even more time in the adjustment phase. Thanks for pointing that out.

has anyone mentioned eating out of smaller plates and dishes?

Yep, Less of Lena did in her first post :)

I love my Weight Watchers serving spoons. I think they came in a set of four 1/8, 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 cup (There might have also been a 1 cup, but if so, I've lost it). They're not as messy to use as measuring cups, and you'd be using a spoon anyway.

Kitchen stores may sell something similar, or you should be able to walk into a WW Center and buy them without joining. I also love their food scale (I've seen similar at Walmart). It is digital, and you can put your plate on the scale, add your food to weigh it, and then reset it at 0 to add the next food.
They are pretty expensive at like $35 or so, but there is also a model that is not digital, that you can slide to 0 to reset (I bought the one I had before the digital scale at Walmart for about $9)

My Mom lost 65 lbs on WW, and has recently plateued. She was very depressed and couldn't understand why her weight wasn't budging. I spent two weeks in April with my parents, and could tell her eating habits had changed. The biggest change was she was no longer measuring. Now she is measuring again, and losing!

lol, oh my gosh, I don't mean to laugh, but the visual is hilarious :joker:

I weigh and measure everything. At first it seems a tedious task, but you get used to it, really you do. I even weigh packages of 1-2 serving vegetables. Because it will say "serving size 1/2 cup" and then number of servings "ABOUT 2.5."

So I dump them into my big measuring cup to see how many 1/2 cup servings there are for real.

I hate that "about" serving crap. I bought a bag of snacks that said, servings "about 6," but the weight listed on the bag, divided by the weight listed per serving came out to 7.2. Some pretty weird math to say over 7 is about equal to 6.