Eating with me can be a surreal experience, for so many reasons. My friends, in a testament to their generous ability to overlook my flaws, put up with a great deal from me with nary a comment. But a few days ago I was reminded of my, er, quirks when I had a friend over for lunch. “It’s like we’re having a tea party with our dolls! Fun!” she exclaimed cheerily. “But do you think I could at least have a real spoon?”
See, we were Ladies Who Lunch… on 6″ salad plates, 1/2-cup bowls and, yes, chunky neon plastic baby spoons. The only thing of adult size were our water glasses, the last two of a set of cut-crystal glasses I got for my wedding ten years ago. While I can totally blame the latter on my kidlets – I will echo a hundred generations of parents in exclaiming, “We can’t have anything nice with you kids!!!” – the former was all my fault.
Portion control is my downfall. There are some, like Skinnygirl Bethenny Frankel, who swear by the “take 3 delicious bites of whatever you want and then leave the rest” mentality. In her book Naturally Thin, she describes meals where she ate something like “3 bites of a Charleston Chew in the car, 6 mini pretzels, 1 triangle of watermelon and 2 bites of lasagna off a friend’s plate.” That, to me, is not a meal. I simply cannot take just three bites of something – especially if it is delicious! One decadent truffle is an appetizer course for the whole box. So several years ago in an effort to rein in this impulse, I came across a diet tip that said to shrink your waistline by shrinking your dinnerware. I’m pretty sure they just meant downgrading your dinner plates from the 12″ restaurant standard to a more reasonable size but I took that to heart. Plus it was easy to do as we already had tot-sized dishes to go with the tot-sized humans quickly overtaking our house.
Which is how I came to be entertaining my adult guest tea-party style. All we needed was our Cabbage Patch dolls and it would have been 2nd grade heaven all over again. In my defense, I do own exactly four normal sized plates and a drawer of perfectly normal silverware, I just forgot to put them out. Because I never use them. I’ll admit it: it makes me feel safe to eat my quinoa on a teeny tiny plastic plate. It’s awfully hard to OD on non-dairy sorbet* when you are eating it out of a doll bowl with a spoon designed for people who often miss their mouth. Sadly what’s quirky now – “Oh look, Charlotte forgot to put out real dishes! Poor sleep-deprived girl!” – is going to look mental patient in a few years when my kids are all eating off of adult dishes and I’m airplaning the peas into my own mouth.
These days, as I have reverted to food journalling (note: I switched from the cumbersome FitDay to the much more user-friendly SparkPeople), portion control has become even more important to me. So I took notice when Personal Trainer Lindsey (she of the most-hated barf weight circuits) posted about the difference between weighing your food and merely measuring it. Using her food scale, she points out that a 270-calorie breakfast she measured out actually rang it at 363 calories when she weighed the portions. As she points out, 100 calories might not be a huge deal at one meal but make that same mistake for 3 meals and 2 snacks every day and you’re looking a big reason why you aren’t losing the weight you think you should be. One of the tips she always suggests to her clients that have plateaued is to start weighing their food instead of measuring it.
Now I will be the first to admit that eating with baby spoons and weighing every bite that goes into your mouth may be bordering on obsessive unhealthy territory. I walk that line (may be straddling it these days) but in a culture that is as supersized as ours it can be hard to remember that a serving of most cereals is 3/4 cup – just barely enough to dust the bottom of most “cereal bowls.” The FDA is even considering requiring companies to alter their food labels to reflect a true portion size of what people eat rather than the strange manufactured serving sizes on many packages today (i.e. one serving of a candybar is half the bar – as if anyone except Bethenny Frankel eats just half of a candy bar.) So measuring out your food for a set period of time – say for one week every couple of months – can be a good reality check.
Any of you have good tips for portion control? Can you eat just 3 bites of a decadent food and then walk away? Anyone want to come over for lunch now??
*Non-dairy sorbet was the best I could find. Upon all of your recommendations I have been scouring the Twin Cities for Coconut Bliss or the So Delicious Coconut ice cream but to no avail. I even drove the 30 minutes to Trader Joe’s tonight and still no luck. My kids all had an ice-cream sandwich for dessert tonight. Me? I ate five dried figs. Sigh.
I think it would be fun to have a tea party !
I use small bowls and plates, but they are a bit bigger than yours. I do eat cereal, yogurt with a tea-spoon rather than the normal size spoon though – it lasts longer and I feel like I'm getting more.
I tend to eat big servings of vege's though, but they've not got a lot of calories in them so that shouldn't really be a problem.
I also find that if I eat slowly, instead of inhaling the food, I get fuller faster. That helps more than smaller plates, which can be refilled quite quickly.
Amber Rose – Love the "eat slower" tip! But how do you remind yourself to do it? I always start eating slowly but then end up inhaling my food. But maybe that's just eating with kids:)
I just load up my plate with veggies. then I don't care about portions.
I am pretty sure Kowalski's in the twin cities has Coconut Bliss and So Delicious. The So Delicious Mint Chip is phenomenal. And I am sure Whole Foods has it. It is expensive though – $5 or $6 for a pint. I guess they can get away with charging that much.
I have been on my great weight loss journey for (this time) about 14 months now. When I started Weight Watchers in January 09 I became really crazy about measuring everything…
Now I've stopped doing Weight Watchers and mostly just count calories, but I know exactly what you mean about becoming obsessive. And your trainer is totally right about the weighing v. measuring, but I just can't bring myself to weigh food (other than meat, and only because I never have any idea how many calories are in a chicken breast unless I weigh it). I don't need another thing to obsess over!
As for eat slower? I'm with you – I inhale everything. I try to START with inhaling veggies, but no matter what it is, I'm scarfing it.
I found that after a couple of months of tracking on Sparkpeople and weighing (not measuring by volume) the food as I went I had a good grip on what my portion sizes are. I find tracking food immensely tedious so I dont do it anymore. But every 6months or so if I suspect I've lost my grip on portion sizes (yes, of course its ok to eat the whole tub of icecream type logic) then I just go back to tracking for a week or so and all is right with the world.
that said, i don't have any obsessive tendencies at all. am far too lazy for that.
I think it's nice to eat in small plates. Don't be ashamed ! I also have mostly children size vessels, trendy ones, but as small as those made of plastic.
What they call a plate in many restaurants is a dish to bring food for 6 in my house and I don't restrict guests but a whole chicken can sit comfortably on such plates… and it looks like a quail.
For *table style conscious* guests, you can place a large plates on the table for decoration, and put the smaller plates or bowls on them.
When I don't have guests, I don't plan to *refill* at home. I put the proper serving in the plates in the kitchen and I store the leftovers. Otherwise I am able to eat as long as there is some left, but well it's my "personal disease".
When I find I eat too fast and too much, I do a few days of shredded cabbage. I mean I eat a bowl (a big one) of finely shredded raw cabbage, munching it well, before starting my meal. The effect is that gives me the good pace. After that I eat every thing slowler and I take less food.
These days, making ice-cream is really very easy with a small ice-cream maker…oh well, maybe a big one for your tribe now. When friends bring me their children, I make them prepare their own ice-cream (that keeps them busy watching the process).
Pour your coconut milk (or cow/soy/almond milk, or yogurt, or fruit juice, or whatever pasted veggie or fruit) in an ice-cream maker and that's it, you get an ice-cream 10 to 20 minutes later. Eat it imediatly because it hardens if you store it.
When you buy some, it always contains more or less (usually less) healthy additives to make the ice-cream stay soft when you get them from your freezer at storage temperatures. It's useless at home. But if you want more texture, you can add a thickener. The *classical* ice cream is made with milk and egg yolk. You mix both and heat slowly, stirring with the wooden spoon till it get a sauce texture. Cool it down before using in the ice-cream maker. Absolutely any other thickener makes the trick : cornstarch, potato starch, arrow-root powder, gelatine, agar-agar…whatever fits the best your current diet.
Last tip, if you want to add sweeteness, powdered sugars don't give a good result, they harden weirdly. In industry, they will put the awful glucose jellies and what they call inverted sugars (oh yummy !), because it's cheap, or they put tons of cream or other grease (I mean Haaagen-Fatz). You can simply use liquid honey.
Kuri
I'm like you, Charlotte; I've NEVER been able to just have a taste of something and be satisfied. Some things I only buy a small amount (i.e. I go to our bulk store and buy 10 chocolate almonds), or I avoid having some things in the house.
I have started to weigh many things and have noticed a difference in what a portion actually considts of, especially in cereal and grains (oh, oatmeal, you tricky minx!). However, I still struggle with portion sizes.
PS – Neither the "eat slower" tip, the "only eat while sitting down" tip, nor the "don't eat in front of the TV/while reading etc" tip have ever worked.
Funny. I always just end up eating 2-3 servings of whatever doll-sized portion of food I've served myself (drinking wine from a shot glass is the exception, that does work for me).
No biggie if you can't find coconut ice cream! I bet you can find a cheapie used ice cream maker (I think everyone was getting them for wedding presents a few years back and I"m sure they're on craigslist now). You just need the full-fat can of coconut milk from the store and you can make your own! Recipes abound on the internet!
I vary a lot on this–portions start to creep up slowly but steadily and then I have to do periodic reality checks.
Hope you're feeling better, btw, and can't wait to see you in Fitness magazine!
I LOVE THAT CARTOON! Course that invisible man best not fool with me!!! 🙂
Yes, I have read often of the changing the plate & utensil sizes. I think the plate idea is great but not sure I would do the kiddie size spoon. I always eat with that smaller fork in the sets of silverware but I doubt it makes me eat less!
I really do watch my portions. Something I always pay attention to. And since you know I eat very clean.. I am still one that can take a bite or two & be done if it is NOT my treat day. On my treat day, I eat that whole dang cookie I buy!
I agree with trying to slow down the eating process too (in my post today). It is hard if one is stressed cause the first thought is to inhale… I do think consciously about this… mindful eating. Plus another benefit, you actually taste the food instead of wondering where it all went so quickly! 🙂
Katie – Yeah, I always make a big plate of veggies my first course. And the Kowalskis just down the street from me closed – I need to get on finding a new one, I guess!
Kuri – Thank you for the ice cream tips! I don't know why but it never ocurred to me to make my own! Will start looking for an ice cream maker ASAP!
Loey – I used to be able to just keep stuff out of the house but having kids and a husband with preferences makes that tricky:) Glad I'm not the only person who can't eat just 3 bites!
Granite – Thanks for the tip to make my own! Seriously, I don't know why that has never occurred to me before! Will try it asap!
Jody, girl, someday I am going to be you when I grow up!!
Portion control is my main way of doing the healthy diet thing! I have found ways of getting the max taste with the min amount. Using volumetric eating (high volume with low calorie dense foods), and other strategies have worked for me.
If you're interested, read a bunch of books about that primal stuff. The basic point is that you cannot ever lose a significant amount of weight in a healthy way by practicing portion control, as that is merely a form of starvation and your body will ramp up your appetite and cool down your metabolism as a response. I've been told the way to do it is to up your healthy fat / protein intake while reducing unhealthy carbs like pretty much anything you find in a package in the store (have you seen what they put in whole wheat bread?!). Not to be confused with Atkins which is essentially "no carb" but to identify what is really bad for you and remove it from your diet.
This way portion control and calorie counting is not necessary. You can go hours without food because the fat makes you full. And I'll bet you won't crash as hard after the gym.
I've been following your blog for a while now and I'm getting worried (even though I am a country away) about you. Most of your posts are about chronic exercise that makes you crash on your kitchen floor, not enough sleep, portion control and obsessive counting of calories… I dunno. Just be careful. Please.
Hi Charlotte, I feel your pain! I too really struggle with portion sizes. But for the past year I've been following Dr Jennie Brand-Miller's Low GI Diet (partly for health resons and partly because it made more sense than other diets I've tried!). For this diet you have to weigh out your portions of pretty much everything bar veggies. I personally find this really works, apart from when I'm dishing up my meal at the same time as my boyfriend's and I have childish thoughts along the lines of 'but he's got more than me! That's not fair!', and yes, occasionally I do cheat! But I'm doing my best to train myself to think 'you're just cheating yourself' – I'd say it works at least 90% of the time! If you think you can stick to it, by all means give it a go, but it does make you a little OCD. I accept that I too am a control freak.
Oh, by the way, the most awesome healthy 'ice cream' recipe I ever tried is where you chop up 2 bananas per person and freeze the pieces in a tupperware or freezer bag. Take them out of the freezer about 10mins before you want your treat to allow them to soften a little, then blend in a food mixer until whipped and creamy. It tastes just like Mr Whippy – you'll never believe it's just bananas! If you're hankering for coconut, I'm sure you could just throw in some dried bits as you whiz. Hey presto! Give it a whirl!
My process is to eat as many veggies as I want, eyeball the size of most other things, but measure out my calorie-dense items like peanut butter, olive oil, and heavy cream.
I've also gained 8 pounds since the end of last summer, though, so I'm considering counting everything again for a time.
Don't really have suggestions, but my Fitness magazine was in the mailbox when I got home from work yesterday. Immediately read the article and thought "Oh look! There's Charlotte!" every time I saw your name (as if I actually know you, even though we've never met).
🙂
For me it's putting less on my plate, because I like to eat, and I eat fast. For veggies, I don't worry about portions tho…
I can't stand the measure log everything business, but I do occasionally weigh or measure out thinge to remind me what a "portion" actually is. I was eating to omuch for too long and it's easy to fall back to it. I dish out food in the kitchen and then sit at the table to eat. Not so tempted to "refill" that way…
I find when I measure too much I obsess and talk about it too much and that is just no fun to be around. I don't like obsessing about things. It's…well…not healthy.
I need to know how to live int he real world.
I am the WORST when it comes to portion control. I really have it embedded in my brain that "one portion" = "the amount I am served/serve to myself" be it the actual serving size or a heaping mound of something. It's something I'm trying to work on.
Regarding the "eat three bites and then put it aside" thing… I know that it is supposed to give you the freedom to eat a tiny bit of whatever you want, but for me, as someone who has portion control issues and who often CAN'T stop at just a few bites, I'm better off not having ANY candy bar than trying to limit myself to only 1/3 of it. Really, telling myself "Okay, you can eat half this Snickers bar but then you have to put the rest away until some other point" is basically setting myself up for failure. A better idea (for me): "You don't need to eat a Snickers."
I try to keep my portions reasonable, and use salad plates instead of dinner plates. But I find that pasta and pizza are the hardest things for me to control: I love them both so much, and I know with my kids that there are rarely leftovers, so I try to shovel in as much as I can.
*sigh.*
OK. I'm off to buy me a copy of "Fitness."
This is my downfall. I take giant-sized portions of everything—especially dessert. I think the only thing that works in my favor is that I eat so slow I don’t end up finishing it before I’m full or it’s cold. For dessert, it doesn’t matter if I’m full or it’s cold. I’m eating it. I really should switch my plates to smaller ones. It’s such a smart move.
Not only can I not quite after a few bites, I can't quit until the whole bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms is gone. That's why I just don't do it. At all.
I like the idea of weighing food though…I do that with my meats but use measuring utensils for the rest…interesting concept…
Hi Charlotte,
There are several places in the Twin Cities to get Coconut Bliss but Trader Joe's is not one of them.
Have you tried our locator to find a store near you?
http://coconutbliss.com/locator/
Blissful Regards,
Kiley From Coconut Bliss
I just bought a kitchen scale, and let me tell you….it was a slap in the face. I'm becoming acutely aware of the difference in calories/gram ratio in vegetables vs. olive oil.
I've become MUCH less liberal with using oils in cooking, and I've become a lot more willing to just have some cucumber + tomato with a bit of lemon juice. I mean, who knew that peanut butter had so many calories?? I had an inkling, it's true, but looking at the gram weight to the number of calories on the jar (and I'm talking natural PB here)- well let's just say the days of PB + J on whole wheat bread are gone.
Also, I love kiddie plates, but not for portion control (though that's a nice side effect), but mainly because they're so brightly coloured! My roommate and I share dishes, obviously, and it's so apparent which ones I brought – the mini plastic cups from ikea v. the giant glass onces, the itty-bitty neon plates from ikea vs. the huge black square ones. Oh yes, I often serve friends on tiny plates- but I have no children, and I have not lived with anyone under the age of 18 since I left for university. I have no excuse, I just love colourful things!
My bedding is also child-coloured, though adult-patterned, and adult sized.
I have often wanted to try the eat off a salad plate but do not want to do it in front on my daughters as they are very impressionable teens. My biggest issue is that I serve almost everything family style. I like that my daughters can easily have more meat without needing to get up but it also means that I can take seconds simply because something tastes good, not because I am still hungry.
Dinner is our big family time each day so that good thing is that we do eat slowly because we discuss every aspect of their days. I hear that is not the case with boy teens so you will need to wait quite a while for jellybean to be old enough to give you the blow-by-blow (my 15 yo starts at the beginning of the day and goes class by class).
When I really want to cut down on calories at dinner, I start with a big leafy salad and eat it before I take any other food. All that crunching and time usually results in me eating way less than if I bug right into the main course.
I love the cartoon! I feel like that lately.
As per food control. BF and I have cut down on carbs and on full dinner plates I felt like I was missing out. I now use salad plates for our dinners, so its 50% protein and 50% leafy greens and doesn't look "empty." It tricks me into feeling less deprived.
The Wedge will special order stuff. That might work for the coconut thingie.
I will NEVER be one of those people who can take a bite of a cookie and push the rest away. Are you kidding me with that Bethany? I would rather eat the whole dang cookie then feel deprived my entire life!
Deep down I have always known that my tablespoon of peanut butter was always a bit (ok a lot) generous…but at the end of the day I figure no one gets fat from a smidge too much nut butter. Those 10 cookies I consume because I can't stop at one bite are another story.
oh my gosh, I am laughing – i totally love using little baby sized spoons!! They're not ACTUAL baby spoons, but the kind I tend to get in restaurants with tea or soup (long handles, little spoon part) and I am known for swiping them. We have about 7 of them i the silverware drawer and I use them with Greek yogurt, oatmeal, ice cream or anything else except soup or cereal, which I need to use a grown-up spoon for. Too funny that we're both utensil-crazy!
The tricks I use to slow down my eating are pretty basic and easy. I put my utensils down between each bite, I cut everything into smaller pieces than I used to (Brussels Sprouts are now in quarters or eights instead of halfs for example). And I do a check-in with myself asking "Am I really hungry). One of the hardest struggles I've had is to leave something on the plate when I'm no longer hungry, as my parents were big on "don't you know there's starving children in Africa ?". I'm overcoming those guilty feelings so that I only eat until I'm full – not until the plate is empty. I now conciously leave at least one mouthful on the plate at every meal. It satisifies the rebel in me.
Others I know take a sip of water between each bite. I can't do that, although I will have a tall glass of water with my food, I sip when I want. When I start eating too fast again I make sure I chew a specific number of times (I start with 10 and increase to 20) so that I'm eating more mindfully. The funny thing I've found is things I thought I liked I found I didn't. That was good because most of it was processed, and I gave them up because I didn't like them rather than because I had to. Sounds silly but it makes a huge psychological difference.
Ahahaha Charlotte we would have the best tea parties together. I'm exactly the same, heh.
I measure out my food pretty religiously and I also level it off and sometimes even make sure the amount of food in my measuring cup/spoon is slightly BELOW the line, for the very reason of portion control. The problem is when I tell myself, "I'm just going to have a tiny taste of nut butter" and I dip a regular spoon into the jar and have a little taste. By the time I'm done, if I'm honest with myself, it's just about 300 calories worth that I've just indulged in. Whoops! So I try to always measure out my portions. Otherwise I'll just keep eating.
I have been meaning to downsize my plates, but that means remembering to measure them and then going to the store with a tape measure to check.
I stopped eating cold cereal awhile ago because I will eat 3 servings of it. Lets just say that there is a lot of pre-packaged food with portion control built in.
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i would fit in perfectly at your tea parties! i'm a weighing/measuring freak. i still don't trust myself to be able to stop eating. i must know how many calories i'm having. i'm trying hard to let go of this mentality, but being a compulsive eater for 30+ years and being binge-free now for two years, i feel like i need to count the calories to stay within my calorie range for the day.
Another hint: a lot of food psych research shows that people underestimate the amount of liquid if it's served in a short & squat glass and overestimate the (same) amount of liquid if it's served in a tall & thin glass. If you still drink juice or soda, dump the highballs!
Those ice creams are found at the Wedge or Whole Foods in Minneapolis!
I have a HUUUUUUUGE bowl for salads. (a serving bowl, but it's alllllll for mmeeeeeee: people are horrified). Then the rest are all smaller, but pretty so I don't feel like a freak eating from them. Same with my dishes- they are funny triangular or oblongo or rectangular shapes, but smaller. It's really because I don't serve myself huge portions to start with and they look ridiculous on 12" plates. Love spoons of all sizes as long as they are really pretty. It's an affliction.
Oh and I'm sure you and spark people are very happy together but I am truly madly and deeply in love with daily plate. It's soooooooooo much easier for the types of food I eat b/c the database is about a zillion times better. The day I tried both out, it took me an hour to log breakfast on SP b/c I had to input all the data myself as it wasn't in the database. DP? 5 min.