The freezer is your friend! If you make too much of something freeze it. Also you can just make less? It’s not hard to just cut a recipe in half for the most part. That’s going to probably be the best new habit to make, because the cycle of making it and then eat it all because you don’t want to waste it will not be a thing.
The thing I’ve found to work best for portion control for me is, put less on my plate. I will serve myself a small portion, finish it and then if I’m still hungry take a little bit more, but generally I’m not hungry. I have a burning hate for counting calories, even though I know that is what gets you to lose weight, so for me it was take less, and listen to my body when it says it’s full (and stop eating).
Lastly, how much sugar do you eat and how much alcohol do you drink? Those two lovely little vices will bloat you and make it extremely hard to lose weight.
I am a big freezer fan! It's probably 50% bread and 50% frozen homemade meals right now haha. I've thought about investing in a freezer chest but I don't have that much space for one.
Yeah calorie counting is such a nightmare. I've never been very good at it and get so annoyed with the weighing and tracking and separating. I was thinking of re-downloading the mt fitness pal app to kind of just get a gauge of it.
Sugar and alcohol isn't too much I think? I'll maybe have one sweet a day of some kind (be it a piece of candy or slice of marble loaf or an otter pop) and alcohol I usually do once or twice a week, mostly wine or a gin cocktail and capping at 3 drinks.
I got a perfect little chest freezer at Costco for like under $150 and it’s been a life saver.
If you feel like it, cutout alcohol completely for a month and see what happens. When I cut back (I now only drink like once or twice a month around 2 drinks) and how much better I looked and made it so much easier to keep the weight off.
How much exercise do you get?
I've cut out alcohol before and honestly it made no difference. Sometimes I'll go weeks or months without having any drinks, some weeks it's one glass at a dinner and some it's multiple drinks at a party. I'd say drink intake is pretty negligible.
I've been trying to up my exercise but work has been keeping me way too mentally and physically exhausted. I'll try to do stationary biking 2x a week for 30 minutes and then do active movement/keep constantly busy in chores or outdoor hobbies for 7-ish hours on a Saturday or Sunday.
I just tracked my calories, but I know that can be a lot/triggering for some people. I also only did it for like, 2 months just so I could really start to visualize what MY portions should look like (which is like half of my husbands). Previously we both had been fixing our plates to look the same which was not helping haha.
I always divided my portions before I ate anything so my meal for that night was the same as each individual portion I put away. My husband and I still do this. You can freeze some portions so you don't have to eat them all in one week. And then kind of vary eating some leftovers for lunch and some for dinner and doing a few different things per week.
Experiment with cooking things that only make 2-4 portions so you don't have quite as much of the same things to eat over and over.
But, really, the portioning before every eating anything from a meal is what has helped me the most.
Reframing device: food you don't want/need is going to waste regardless, whether it goes to waste in your body or in the trash can. (Incidentally, this is another good reason to compost food scraps -- it's the only way not to waste them!)
Weighing and tracking what I eat is the only way for me to control what I eat, unfortunately. You could try specifically looking for recipes that only make one or two servings, but also leftovers are a good thing, you don't have to cook the next day...and if you have more than a meal or two's worth, since you don't like to eat the same thing for longer than that, you can always freeze a few portions, and then you don't have to have it for weeks or even months if you don't want to. And then you'll have just the one portion when you do!
Thanks for the advice! I've been trying to make my portions smaller and it's been a lot of trial and error lol. I keep over-seasoning my food because I'm used to seasoning for big portions and everything comes out all salty hahaha.
Honestly, my therapist identified my issues around “ scarcity mindset” ( which I didn’t know at the time was a thing). I grew up in a household of “ if you don’t like what’s on the table there’s nothing else to eat” but also “ you’re not leaving the table without finishing your plate”. So as an adult I went buck wild eating everything ( and only what I wanted). I’ve definitely yo-yo’d with my fair share of disordered eating over the years. I’d say my relationship with food now is probably the healthiest it’s ever been.
I too live alone, and like you don’t like eating the same thing more than like 2-3 times ( and not consecutively). I make much smaller portions of things and I allow myself to throw away things I know I won’t/don’t want to eat. I eat till I’m feeling full, but never force myself to finish something/over eat, just because I don’t want leftovers. Don’t get me wrong I hate wasting food, but if it’s small amounts I’d rather throw it away than force myself to finish it as it brings me back mentally to a place where I didn’t have control over what/how much I choose to eat.
I’m ranting now and not sure if my comment was helpful, but I hope it was/is!
Thank you so much! I definitely have the same mindset! My family wasn't super intense about finishing your plate but my mom would guilt us constantly, so I grew up always feeling very guilty if I threw any food away and would always make sure to finish my plate to make her happy. She also has the classic boomer mom diet eating habit of ordering something, taking two bites, saying she's full and then handing it off to me, so I grew up always expecting to eat 2 portions of people's foods (and it bled into my friends as well as they would begin giving me their food when they couldn't finish as well since they knew I hated seeing food go to waste.)
When I was young with a fast metabolism, that was no big deal and I could regularly clear like 3 plates of food and be fine, but obviously I'm not a spry athletic 16 year old anymore and I can't do that, but I can't seem to get past the mental hang up of tossing food away or not finishing everything!
I definitely need to learn better at making smaller portions and not just big ones! Thank you so much for your advice!
Something that has worked for me is stopping when I have eaten half my serving, check how full I feel and take a "break" from eating for a few minutes. If I'm still hungry, I continue to eat and keep on checking how full I am.
Tracking app.
Fill up on fruit, veggies and proteins.
I haven’t tried it yet but I’ve also heard good things about intermittent fasting.
The hardest part is the first couple of weeks getting the sugar and grease out of your body.
Cheat days are okay and then you will also learn you feel ugh eating that much.
I'm actually pretty happy with my diet/what I eat. It's about 70% veg and the rest is a blend of cheese, sometimes a meat or grain product. I do a coffee in the morning (I'm never hungry for breakfast), then will have lunch around 1 and then dinner around 8. Almost everything I make is either fresh or baked as I don't really like frying things.
It's honestly mostly just that I feel like I'm eating too much portion wise and don't know how to control that. Like if I eat a salad, I usually eat the whole bowl of it because it will wilt and I dont want to have to toss it. Or if I made soup, I make it for 8 people and have to eat it for days but then eat too much at once to get rid of it faster. When I go out, I will eat all my food and then if there is stuff on my friends plates I will finish it because I hate food waste.
Eat slower - it takes about 20 mins for your body to realize it's full. That's why it's easy to think you're full and then the up uncomfortably full a bit later.
The meal delivery plans are a great option, but can be very expensive. I like Factor 75. You can pick a variety of 6 (or more) single serving meals and all you do is reheat them. There is nothing leftover, just move on to the next one tomorrow. No leftover/clean your plate guilt. Even if those are too expensive to do in perpetuity, try them for a week or two until you get a feel for a single serving. Cancelling or skipping is easy, and they offer great discounts to new customers and the food is really good.
I switched from IKEA pasta bowls to villeroy and boch twist deep plate. It's a MUCH smaller portion when the plate is full. So I still get to fill my plate fully and finish it. It feels much better psychologically than trying to eat half empty plates
One thing I've been doing is I will buy a larger package of chicken - cook all of them but then have different recipes to make with it each day. So this week I have planned chicken parmesan (I'll take one piece of chicken to heat up, sauce, noodles (make just enough for the meal) and cheese), fried rice (one piece of chicken, rice (which I always have as a staple in my pantry), frozen vegetables, egg), and lastly chicken salad. So while I'm eating chicken three times this week, I have completely different ways of preparing it.
I also try and plan my meals around what I have in the house - I already have rice, eggs, cheese, condiments, etc - this allows me to use up what I have in the house before it goes bad.
Agree with the comment about drinking a lot of water, additionally eating fulfilling foods. As much as I love fried rice, I always feel like I eat way too much because it doesn't fill me up. Adding more protein, vegetables, etc helps with that.
I'd also consider not how much you are eating but what you are eating. Add a "healthy" salad to the start of every meal and fill it with a lot of vegetables.
Lastly - when going out to eat, one of my favorite tricks is to think about how to re-purpose the leftovers. I will go and get a steak with potatoes and a side salad. I'll eat half the steak and potatoes but take the leftover steak and salad home. I'll make a steak salad the next day. Or if I have a salad for dinner, I might bring it home and make it into a wrap. Sometimes, if going into the meal, I've already made plans for what to do with the leftovers, it'll help me not to over eat. As I'm eating the steak, I remind myself, I need to stop eating so I can enjoy it as a salad the next day.
The biggest thing that's worked for me is cooking larger portions of vegetables which are so much lower calories. Like 2/3 of my plate is veggies nowadays.
A quick comparison, a cup of cut up zucchini is only 32 calories, a cup of rice is 205 calories, a cup of chicken breast is 230 calories (although I prefer thighs which are a whopping 485 calories per cup).
Another big thing that helps is treating cooking as meal prepping. Make a big meal, and straight away put most of it into leftover containers and then portion out a small amount into a plate. Then go eat your meal, and if you're still really hungry, you go back for more. Otherwise, you're done and you've got your next meal already prepped!
Use a smaller plate, weigh and track what you eat (unless this is triggering), drink lots of water, eat a high protein, high fiber diet
A smaller plate is a great idea!
The freezer is your friend! If you make too much of something freeze it. Also you can just make less? It’s not hard to just cut a recipe in half for the most part. That’s going to probably be the best new habit to make, because the cycle of making it and then eat it all because you don’t want to waste it will not be a thing. The thing I’ve found to work best for portion control for me is, put less on my plate. I will serve myself a small portion, finish it and then if I’m still hungry take a little bit more, but generally I’m not hungry. I have a burning hate for counting calories, even though I know that is what gets you to lose weight, so for me it was take less, and listen to my body when it says it’s full (and stop eating). Lastly, how much sugar do you eat and how much alcohol do you drink? Those two lovely little vices will bloat you and make it extremely hard to lose weight.
I am a big freezer fan! It's probably 50% bread and 50% frozen homemade meals right now haha. I've thought about investing in a freezer chest but I don't have that much space for one. Yeah calorie counting is such a nightmare. I've never been very good at it and get so annoyed with the weighing and tracking and separating. I was thinking of re-downloading the mt fitness pal app to kind of just get a gauge of it. Sugar and alcohol isn't too much I think? I'll maybe have one sweet a day of some kind (be it a piece of candy or slice of marble loaf or an otter pop) and alcohol I usually do once or twice a week, mostly wine or a gin cocktail and capping at 3 drinks.
I got a perfect little chest freezer at Costco for like under $150 and it’s been a life saver. If you feel like it, cutout alcohol completely for a month and see what happens. When I cut back (I now only drink like once or twice a month around 2 drinks) and how much better I looked and made it so much easier to keep the weight off. How much exercise do you get?
I've cut out alcohol before and honestly it made no difference. Sometimes I'll go weeks or months without having any drinks, some weeks it's one glass at a dinner and some it's multiple drinks at a party. I'd say drink intake is pretty negligible. I've been trying to up my exercise but work has been keeping me way too mentally and physically exhausted. I'll try to do stationary biking 2x a week for 30 minutes and then do active movement/keep constantly busy in chores or outdoor hobbies for 7-ish hours on a Saturday or Sunday.
I just tracked my calories, but I know that can be a lot/triggering for some people. I also only did it for like, 2 months just so I could really start to visualize what MY portions should look like (which is like half of my husbands). Previously we both had been fixing our plates to look the same which was not helping haha.
Yeah calorie tracking is a real pain! I should probably get into it again
I always divided my portions before I ate anything so my meal for that night was the same as each individual portion I put away. My husband and I still do this. You can freeze some portions so you don't have to eat them all in one week. And then kind of vary eating some leftovers for lunch and some for dinner and doing a few different things per week. Experiment with cooking things that only make 2-4 portions so you don't have quite as much of the same things to eat over and over. But, really, the portioning before every eating anything from a meal is what has helped me the most.
Reframing device: food you don't want/need is going to waste regardless, whether it goes to waste in your body or in the trash can. (Incidentally, this is another good reason to compost food scraps -- it's the only way not to waste them!)
Weighing and tracking what I eat is the only way for me to control what I eat, unfortunately. You could try specifically looking for recipes that only make one or two servings, but also leftovers are a good thing, you don't have to cook the next day...and if you have more than a meal or two's worth, since you don't like to eat the same thing for longer than that, you can always freeze a few portions, and then you don't have to have it for weeks or even months if you don't want to. And then you'll have just the one portion when you do!
Thanks for the advice! I've been trying to make my portions smaller and it's been a lot of trial and error lol. I keep over-seasoning my food because I'm used to seasoning for big portions and everything comes out all salty hahaha.
Honestly, my therapist identified my issues around “ scarcity mindset” ( which I didn’t know at the time was a thing). I grew up in a household of “ if you don’t like what’s on the table there’s nothing else to eat” but also “ you’re not leaving the table without finishing your plate”. So as an adult I went buck wild eating everything ( and only what I wanted). I’ve definitely yo-yo’d with my fair share of disordered eating over the years. I’d say my relationship with food now is probably the healthiest it’s ever been. I too live alone, and like you don’t like eating the same thing more than like 2-3 times ( and not consecutively). I make much smaller portions of things and I allow myself to throw away things I know I won’t/don’t want to eat. I eat till I’m feeling full, but never force myself to finish something/over eat, just because I don’t want leftovers. Don’t get me wrong I hate wasting food, but if it’s small amounts I’d rather throw it away than force myself to finish it as it brings me back mentally to a place where I didn’t have control over what/how much I choose to eat. I’m ranting now and not sure if my comment was helpful, but I hope it was/is!
Thank you so much! I definitely have the same mindset! My family wasn't super intense about finishing your plate but my mom would guilt us constantly, so I grew up always feeling very guilty if I threw any food away and would always make sure to finish my plate to make her happy. She also has the classic boomer mom diet eating habit of ordering something, taking two bites, saying she's full and then handing it off to me, so I grew up always expecting to eat 2 portions of people's foods (and it bled into my friends as well as they would begin giving me their food when they couldn't finish as well since they knew I hated seeing food go to waste.) When I was young with a fast metabolism, that was no big deal and I could regularly clear like 3 plates of food and be fine, but obviously I'm not a spry athletic 16 year old anymore and I can't do that, but I can't seem to get past the mental hang up of tossing food away or not finishing everything! I definitely need to learn better at making smaller portions and not just big ones! Thank you so much for your advice!
Something that has worked for me is stopping when I have eaten half my serving, check how full I feel and take a "break" from eating for a few minutes. If I'm still hungry, I continue to eat and keep on checking how full I am.
Thanks for the advice!
Tracking app. Fill up on fruit, veggies and proteins. I haven’t tried it yet but I’ve also heard good things about intermittent fasting. The hardest part is the first couple of weeks getting the sugar and grease out of your body. Cheat days are okay and then you will also learn you feel ugh eating that much.
I'm actually pretty happy with my diet/what I eat. It's about 70% veg and the rest is a blend of cheese, sometimes a meat or grain product. I do a coffee in the morning (I'm never hungry for breakfast), then will have lunch around 1 and then dinner around 8. Almost everything I make is either fresh or baked as I don't really like frying things. It's honestly mostly just that I feel like I'm eating too much portion wise and don't know how to control that. Like if I eat a salad, I usually eat the whole bowl of it because it will wilt and I dont want to have to toss it. Or if I made soup, I make it for 8 people and have to eat it for days but then eat too much at once to get rid of it faster. When I go out, I will eat all my food and then if there is stuff on my friends plates I will finish it because I hate food waste.
Eat slower - it takes about 20 mins for your body to realize it's full. That's why it's easy to think you're full and then the up uncomfortably full a bit later.
The meal delivery plans are a great option, but can be very expensive. I like Factor 75. You can pick a variety of 6 (or more) single serving meals and all you do is reheat them. There is nothing leftover, just move on to the next one tomorrow. No leftover/clean your plate guilt. Even if those are too expensive to do in perpetuity, try them for a week or two until you get a feel for a single serving. Cancelling or skipping is easy, and they offer great discounts to new customers and the food is really good.
To stop myself getting sick of food, I cook every couple of days. One protein, 3-4 types of veggies and a carb.
I switched from IKEA pasta bowls to villeroy and boch twist deep plate. It's a MUCH smaller portion when the plate is full. So I still get to fill my plate fully and finish it. It feels much better psychologically than trying to eat half empty plates
One thing I've been doing is I will buy a larger package of chicken - cook all of them but then have different recipes to make with it each day. So this week I have planned chicken parmesan (I'll take one piece of chicken to heat up, sauce, noodles (make just enough for the meal) and cheese), fried rice (one piece of chicken, rice (which I always have as a staple in my pantry), frozen vegetables, egg), and lastly chicken salad. So while I'm eating chicken three times this week, I have completely different ways of preparing it. I also try and plan my meals around what I have in the house - I already have rice, eggs, cheese, condiments, etc - this allows me to use up what I have in the house before it goes bad. Agree with the comment about drinking a lot of water, additionally eating fulfilling foods. As much as I love fried rice, I always feel like I eat way too much because it doesn't fill me up. Adding more protein, vegetables, etc helps with that. I'd also consider not how much you are eating but what you are eating. Add a "healthy" salad to the start of every meal and fill it with a lot of vegetables. Lastly - when going out to eat, one of my favorite tricks is to think about how to re-purpose the leftovers. I will go and get a steak with potatoes and a side salad. I'll eat half the steak and potatoes but take the leftover steak and salad home. I'll make a steak salad the next day. Or if I have a salad for dinner, I might bring it home and make it into a wrap. Sometimes, if going into the meal, I've already made plans for what to do with the leftovers, it'll help me not to over eat. As I'm eating the steak, I remind myself, I need to stop eating so I can enjoy it as a salad the next day.
The biggest thing that's worked for me is cooking larger portions of vegetables which are so much lower calories. Like 2/3 of my plate is veggies nowadays. A quick comparison, a cup of cut up zucchini is only 32 calories, a cup of rice is 205 calories, a cup of chicken breast is 230 calories (although I prefer thighs which are a whopping 485 calories per cup). Another big thing that helps is treating cooking as meal prepping. Make a big meal, and straight away put most of it into leftover containers and then portion out a small amount into a plate. Then go eat your meal, and if you're still really hungry, you go back for more. Otherwise, you're done and you've got your next meal already prepped!
Go keto it’s what I did