Yes, it can be a pain. No, I don't always want to do it. But, guess what, I'd also prefer not to eat aimlessly and pack on more pounds. So, this is what I'm doing. You really need just a few inexpensive kitchen items to be able to take control of portions in home-cooked meals (and packaged food).
These things get me through the day. I have a really inexpensive food scale that I got from the grocery store. It works just fine and I've had it for years. Really helpful to measure out sweet potato chips. Soooo....one ounce isn't exactly what I thought it was (or hoped it was). Measuring cups and spoons may seem like something we use only for baking, but I assure you...you can use them with every single meal. I measure coffee creamer, yogurt, ketchup!!!!, vegetables, shredded cheese, chips, peanut butter, etc. If I don't measure, things can spiral out of control REAL quick in the kitchen.
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To satisfy your curiosity (I know your'e just itching to know), here's what a serving of veggies; a serving of sweet potato chips; and a serving of hummus looks like in real life. I recently saw a meme that said something like "I don't always eat chips and salsa, but when I do, I do it until I hate myself." Yeah, that's pretty much it. I can sit and eat chips and salsa or hummus to the point of total disgust. Easy to do with "healthy" food, right?
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So, if you're thinking about taking control of your health - start in the kitchen and go back to basics with rolling back portions and eating food that simple, with just a few recognizable ingredients. Homemade is always bese, but when you do have to buy packaged food - make sure you know what each ingredient is and the wagon will be moving full-speed again (with you in it, not under it).
Great tips and you are so right. We have such a skewed visual of a "serving size".
ReplyDeleteI prefer to use a digital food scale instead of measuring cups and spoons when I can for a couple of different reasons:
1) It's easier to put my plate onto the scale and zero it out and then add my stuff directly to the plate to get the number of grams or ounces I'm looking for than it is to dig out a tablespoon or measuring cup and then have something else to wash. I do this with everything: meat, veggies, ketchup, peanut butter, chips, cheese, fruit, ice cream, EVERYTHING!
and 2) I tend to stuff those measuring cups and spoons FULL (errrr....overflowing!) and I found that after weighing things out and comparing what I would measure and what I would weight, I was actually still eating a bit more than the intended serving when using the measuring cups and spoons.
Not that one way is better than the other, I just know that using the spoons and cups, I was still overdoing it with some things. Three big things were ice cream, shredded cheese and peanut butter.
Awesome, tips, Angela! I'm a serious tech geek, but I've never looked into a digital food scale. I figured I just didn't need one since I had the analog scale. I will check it out! Thank you!!
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