For the past several months, I’ve been training myself to eat smaller portion sizes. (It’s taken me a long time because growing up, I got Hungarian/German portion sizes in my household, translating that to modern day Aussie portions, one old fashioned European portion is enough to feed four people.)
Years of getting sick from over eating but not knowing it was over eating, I had decided to do some research as to portion sizes last year. I’m not talking about how many grams of meat/veggies/dessert whatever, everyone knows that, but the weight of the contents of the plate as a whole.
The show “My 600 Pound Life” helped me a lot. One comment stuck, when the doctor was showing a container and explained that that’s all the person will be able to eat after the operation that shrinks down the stomach. The container was the size of a small cup. So that was my starting point.
It took a couple of months for me to figure out that I could comfortably eat up to 400gms of food per meal, and anything over that made me feel like I was over eating. This was still a trying time. Years of cultural bad habits meant that my body demanded seconds after I finished my meal, but I (in my mind) knew that give it half an hour and my body will be fine with it.. I just had to ignore that half an hour of the body pleading and demanding more food. On the few occasions I gave in and had seconds, I regretted soon after.
After a few more months (and every meal was extremely trying), my body finally accepted that 300 – 400 gms (I figured out, I can start the day with 400gms for breakfast, then around 350gms for lunch, then 300 or less for dinner. Over time, I worked out I could have the more healthy 5 meals a day if I kept those down to 200gms per meal (before this, never could figure out how people ate 5 meals a day).
The next step was to train myself re last minute meals before bed (i.e midnight snacks). This has been a life long habit also, but reading an article that said that midnight snacks are a big contributor to weight gain, I decided it was time to let go of this much loved habit. This was one of the toughest things to break.
I struggled constantly with this until a friend and I struck up a discussion one afternoon re why our bodies crave food after midnight, and once, between the two of us, we were able to figure it out, it helped me fight harder to crave the late night munchies. I have a new rule that I stick to that if I’m SUPER hungry after midnight, but not tired enough to go to bed, I’ll just have a cup a soup (even if it’s just flavoured stock in hot water to save on budget). The body kicked up a stink about this, but I stuck to this rule, and after a time, especially on those times when I gave in and ate solid (and that happened frequently enough), my body cottoned onto when I eat solid foods after midnight, I’m cramped up and sick in the morning, when I just have a cup a soup, I’m fine the next morning.
The changes in my body are beginning to show in how I feel. I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight, my clothes don’t feel different in any way, but I have found my IBS has died down to a degree. I don’t get cramped or as bloated as much as I used to, I’m not forever feeling sick, and I know this sounds weird, I don’t feel heavy, I feel a lot lighter in myself! Even though I haven’t lost weight, I still weigh (at last check) 147kgs (I tend to average between 145kgs – 150kgs), my clothes don’t feel different, I have bi-lateral lymphoedema (both legs), but somehow I feel lighter, and I think that a great deal of that is based on retraining myself re my portion sizes and when to eat.
Don’t get me wrong, my eating habits are still far from perfect. Because of my nocturnal habits of waking up close to midday and not crashing till close to sunrise, breakfast for me happens somewhere between 11am – 1pm. Lunch happens somewhere between 3pm – 5pm (depending on when breakfast was) and dinner can vary between 6pm – 10pm (again depending on previous meals). And I still occasionally have the bad habit of skipping meals, but I’m learning to not make up for lost time afterwards, that is.. in the past when I skipped meals, the next meal would be double the size to compensate. I don’t do that anymore (or at least try very hard not to).
And I really REALLY can’t stand the word DIET. Every time I try to tell myself I’m going on a diet, my body rebels and I find myself eating everything I shouldn’t, from everything I’m allergic to, to sugary products to too many take away foods, and in excessive portions. So NO! I’m not on any diet. I still eat take-away and ice cream and desserts and cake, BUT I have altered my eating habits enough to be more acceptable to my body so it no longer wants to eat oversized portions. That saying: “Everything in moderation” works here.
I also no longer want to go on any “weight loss program” for the same reason. It conjures up the word DIET in my head which again sends my body and subconscious mind into rebellion. DIETS are the best way for people to gain weight and to fail. What people have been saying to me all along “It’s not about diet, it’s about lifestyle” is true. Make little changes in your eating habits and everything else will follow.
Today, I passed a new milestone. For lunch I had a “TV dinner” that was pre-packaged spaghetti and meatballs. A small single serve meal that I knew I’d be good with as it would surely be under the 350gm rule (I didn’t really look at the packet), so zapped it in the microwave and had it for lunch. Within 15 minutes of eating it, I felt like I overate.
Seriously?? After a TV dinner?? In the olden days my body would have been like, “that’s it?!? Where’s the rest?!?” And I’d go fishing around in the fridge for something else to eat, but instead, I went to check the weight of the packet. It was a 260gm meal. A perfect weight portion for me (although in the olden days, I would have seen a meal weighing this amount as a total rip off). It made me realise that despite being so large, my body has finally come to accept the smaller portion sizes. It does make me wonder if I should lesson my portion sizes a bit more if the meal includes things like carbohydrates. The reason for this I’ll mention in an upcoming blog that’s currently brewing in my head. Keep a look out for Food Addictions and how I’m dealing with them.
In the meantime, I’m pretty proud of my body and the re-training it’s accomplished so far. Things can only get better from here, don’t you think? One can only hope.
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