What’s a Normal Portion Size?

by | Apr 7, 2014 | Portion Sizes | 0 comments

Fish We tend to eat what’s on our plate. Most of us have a hard time stopping at satiety or assessing caloric count; we therefore rely on outside cues and eat the unit offered, believing that that unit is what normal people eat.

So restaurants influence how much we’ll eat just by deciding the serving sizes, and those are unpredictable and range from petite to colossal. A study published last year surveyed 245 restaurant chains and found that entrees averaged 674 calories, appetizers 813 calories, sides 260 calories, salads 496 calories, drinks 419 calories, and desserts 429 calories. Combine just two portions and you’re way over the Institute of Medicine’s recommended 640 per meal, and these calorie counts are averages — Olive Garden’s Chicken Alfredo has 1,540 calories a plate.

A new commentary by Deborah Cohen and Mary Story in the American Journal of Public Health has an interesting suggestion: Let’s standardize portion sizes in restaurants.

Portion distortion

There are standards for screws, nuts and bolts, argue the authors. Portion sizes are established for packaged foods. Alcohol is standardized: A standard drink contains about 0.6 ounces of ethanol in the U.S. (the U.S. alcohol unit is more generous than the U.K. one), and would therefore amount to a large 12-ounce glass of beer, 5-ounce or half a glass of wine or a tiny 1.5-ounce shot of vodka. This enables people to gauge their alcohol consumption, knowing that it takes about an hour to metabolize each unit of alcohol. Most states outlaw all-you-can-drink sales of alcohol — you’re free to order as many drinks as you wish, but it’s illegal to automatically refill your glass.

Yet when it comes to restaurant food serving sizes are all over the place, making it very difficult to practice portion control unless you can consult calorie charts and bring along measuring cups and scales. Palm-of-your-hand tricks for estimating the meat portion hardly work for amorphous foods that take the shape of a deep plate. Portion control relies totally on consumer education, but why not enlist the provider — who after all has much better access to measuring cups — for assistance?

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Are you a mindful eater?

by | Apr 18, 2013 | Cravings, General Health, Portion Sizes, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

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When most people talk about eating habits and diet, 9 times out of 10, they talk about what we should eat saying that such and such a food is  good for you while another food is bad for you. But it’s not just what we eat that matters, it’s how we eat as well and I don’t just mean should you eat three meals a day, two meals a day or even six meals a day. It’s the actual eating habits that we have that can make a huge impact not only on what we eat but how that food affects us as well.

Registered dietician, Amy Watson has done a very nice article that answers the question, “Are you a mindful eater” and I’m just going to quote one thing from her where she says “Being a mindful eater can lead to better digestion. If your mind isn’t focused on the meal, your digestive process may be 30 to 40 percent less effective. This can contribute to issues such as gas, bloating, and bowel irregularities.”

It then goes on to show us how we can become more mindful eaters and improve both our digestion and our health. See the link below.

Link to the article

Get Started

by | Jan 9, 2013 | Low carb diet, Portion Sizes, Sensible Eating, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Here is a copy of the post on about.com that I have commented on regarding low carb diet

sunnydesertday posted:

It’s a wonderful way to start losing weight and eventually changing a lifestyle. Adjusting to Atkins may be a challenge, but the results are worth every struggle. Eventually, lower carbs can become a way of life and no longer a challenge. And carbs are returned, to a certain point.  Atkins does not necessarily mean high fat. I prefer lower fat, as well. I don’t have to have bacon with my eggs or on my hamburger. Also crucial is portion control, no matter how or what one eats. Many of us would be better off with smaller portions and small snacks.

My comment:

There is no doubt that the low carb diet is a wonderful way to start losing weight and as that weight is lost, obviously, our lifestyle would change because there are so many things that we can start doing our excess weight stopped us from doing it in the first place. So, I would agree totally with sunnydesertday, Atkins, or any low carb diet for that matter, is really a wonderful way to start losing weight. Adjusting to any low carb diet is a challenge but we can minimize that in so many ways.

One thing I’ve noticed that many people concentrate on when they start any diet, but particularly a low carb diet, is that they start concentrating on all the thing they can’t eat and instead of enriching their diet or taking the challenge, they actually start to limit the amount or the types of food that they eat…. “Because you can’t eat anything but potatoes and you can’t eat anything with rice and you can’t eat anything with bread”, and all those sort of things. However, if we were to take a step back, and accept what so may regard as a challenge, then quite frankly, what we can eat is far  more likely to become varied in so many, many ways. Let’s face it,  when was the last time you decided to buy a different cut of meat from the one you always buy, or buy a different  type of fish to the one that you buy most of the time? When was the last time you walked pass a vegetable counter in your supermarket or hypermarket and thought “Oh that looks different, I think I’ll try that!”

I’m sure you see where I’m coming from. The simple fact is that, yes, any new diet can be a challenge if we allow it to be so but it can also become a wonderful opportunity to try new things and simply dare to taste things that we’ve never tasted before.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Can’t eat “this much” meat? It’s not what you think

by | Jan 8, 2013 | Fat Loss, Food Choices, Portion Sizes | 0 comments

Here is a copy of the a post I replied to at Active Low-Carber Forums about eating meat

WereBear wrote: 

So often, new low carbers find themselves eating more meat than they have in years.

For many, this is simply permission to eat as they have always wanted. For others, especially those who have been avoiding meat for whatever reason, it becomes a wrenching transition. It’s very tempting to conclude that we are “natural” vegetarians, or that “they” were right, meat isn’t good for us! or that low carbing is not going to “work” for us.

But that might not be what is really going on. We embarked on low carbing because we wanted to change things; our weight, our health, our moods. More change, not less, is what we need to embrace.

**************

This was my reply:

Having just finished my delicious breakfast of eggs and bacon, I have to say I’m in a very good mood and totally agree with WereBear. Yes, she is right, portion size does play a huge part in retraining the way we eat and I find myself continually surprised at how little food satisfies me nowadays especially when I remember eating huge portions of pasta only to be hungry a few hours later and yes, I do love eating meat now. Yet even after I switched to the low diet way of eating, I too found I was still bloated on occasion and that did cause me some concern for quite a while. It was only when I  went back to basics that I really discovered that not only my enzymes were out of balanced but also my stomach bacteria was totally out of balanced  through years of eating pap and useless nutrition.

So being the studious chap that I am, I pulled out all of my notes on how the digestive system works and got stuck into finding the most effective cure for me; and I found it was simply a course of complete probiotics that not only brought my problem with bloating into a swift conclusion, as in the space of three to four days I had a normal stomach again and I have to say, felt much better within myself. I also supplemented for a while with enzymes and I do sometimes go back to those just to make sure that everything is talked up as it should be.

So for my experience, there you have it, if you deal with the enzymes, you deal with your bacteria and as WereBear had suggested, you take account of your stomach acid, you should find that your low carb journey is exactly as it should be, free of problems with your stomach and digestion and free to eat exactly what you know you should be eating.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Eyeing up Your Food

by | May 24, 2012 | Food Choices, Portion Sizes, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Portion sizes seem to grow bigger each time you go to the restaurant.
Which makes me ask two basic Questions…
“Can keeping a track of what you eat change how hungry you think you are?”
And
“Does portion size mean anything”

In a simple test, two groups of 15 people were treated to a dinner of chicken drumsticks.  Two large plates of 150 chicken drumsticks each were put onto each table, they were checked beforehand to make sure they contained exactly the same quantity, both in terms of number and weight.

The first table was left to get on with their meal more-or-less unhindered.  However, the second group regularly had all the bones and other evidence of what they had consumed taken away from the table.  At the end of the meal, the amount of chicken that each table had eaten was then measured.

The result showed that the table who had their bones cleared away throughout the meal ate nearly 10% more chicken than the table who could see how much they had eaten by the bones and remains left on the table.  You could use this method for yourself, as a reminder of how much you’ve been eating.

It’s not as good as portion control to start with, but at least if you are faced with going to a buffet or something like that, make a mental note before you start to clear your plate of what’s on there to give yourself some sort of guidance.
Portion size.

I’ve long been an advocate of eating sensible portion sizes as it’s better to go back and take a bit more if your hungry than take too much and eat it just because it’s on your plate. Our next quick study illustrates that very nicely.

There was a study done two years ago in America, which showed that the size of the container can unknowingly and powerfully increase just how much food a person eats.

A test was carried out using movie goers and popcorn.  Half of the movie-goers were given large size buckets of popcorn (120g); the other half were given extra large buckets of popcorn (240g).

Just to see if it was purely portion size that would determine how much people ate, half of both groups were given stale popcorn.

At the end of the film, the amount of popcorn left over by each group was collected up and measured.  Don’t forget, it was comparing how much each group was given to how much each group had left behind.

The difference between the two groups, those who had the smaller buckets and those who had the super-sized buckets, was quite dramatic.

The results showed that the people who had larger containers proportionally ate 45% more than those people who had the smaller containers.

The thing this shows, is that when we go “large” or “super-size” on our snacks, our understanding of what is an acceptable amount to eat goes up.  Quite simply put, the larger the portion you have on your plate (or in your bucket!) the more you will eat.

This means that there is a very simple way of avoiding eating too much.  If you don’t want to eat more than you need to, don’t take the super-sized portions.

In fact one very good tip, is to take half of what you think you need and eat that.

Once you have finished, leave it 5 to 10 minutes before you decide if you want to go back for more. That way you leave adequate time for your stomach to register if you’re satisfied or not.

Even if you do want a little more – you will be more able to guage just how much, as you already have a very good idea of how satisfying the meal is.

And it’s certain your host will be flattered by you liking it so much you that ‘just had to have a little bit more’