As an addict I know how hard it is, to be on a journey to recovery. My addiction isn’t to drugs, it’s an addiction to food. I’ve always been a huge lover of food, and despite my weight it isn’t just to unhealthy foods. My biggest struggle to getting healthy, besides the exercise has been my food portions. Since I love to eat if you give me a huge plate of food, regardless if I’m full or not I’ll probably attempt to eat it all. Before I started my weight-loss journey, I used to use the 10 1/2 inch plates. I would fill the plate up full from side to side with food, and then pile up the food some more. That’s a lot of food, way more than my body needs in one meal. At the time that plate just seemed normal size to me, but then a little over a year ago I stopped using them. I switched and started using the medium-sized plates 9 inches. I used them for a few months, while the bigger ones just sat in my cupboard. Despite changing to the medium-sized plates, I still felt like I was overeating. I tried to give myself smaller portions on the medium-sized plates, but my brain was always convinced that I hadn’t eaten enough. So for the past year at meals, I’ve been using the kids coloured plates that I bought at IKEA. There 7 1/4 inches from side to side and I feel full when I’m done eating. I still keep the bigger plates in the cupboards for when people come over, or when we run out of clean smaller plates. 😛
After all I can’t expect everyone elses views to be the same as mine, but now whenever I look at those other plates they look huge to me. I don’t starve myself I know that if I want more food I can go back and get some more, the thing is most of the time I don’t feel I need to because I feel full. It’s important to pay attention to the size of our plates, your brain will play tricks on you. If you are using a bigger plate, and you give yourself a smaller portion of food on there. There’s a high chance that your brains going to think “we aren’t eating enough!” However if you grab a smaller plate, then you put your portions to fit…your brain will tell your stomach that it’s full when your done. I know that sounds completely ridiculous, but I’m talking from personal experience. I’m not saying you can’t go back for seconds, if you want more food it just helps you prevent overeating.
It’s one of the big reasons that a lot of us overeat when we go out to eat. When were at home were accustomed to eating a certain amount of food, then once we get to the restaurant the size of the plates and portions are huge. Still I know I’m guilty most of the time of being able to finish everything on my plate. It isn’t that I was still hungry, I just ate it because it was there. That usually leads to me sitting there uncomfortably full after the meal. That’s why whenever I order pasta, I ask for a container right away. Most of the time when you’ve ordered pasta, they make way more than a normal serving. It’s best to take about half of it and put it in your container, to avoid overeating.
Some other tips to avoid eating too much are: have a drink of water before you’ve started to eat, and try to avoid eating too fast. Give your stomach time to tell your brain that it’s full. When your eating food at home, and you know there’s going to be leftovers. Get the food into the containers right away after you’ve dished out everyone’s plates, your less likely to go searching for unnecessary seconds if the foods already put away.
What tips do you have to avoid overeating?