Portion Distortion by Leanne Ely, C.N.C.
One of the things with my own personal body clutter that I have
struggled with is learning to eat less food than what I want to eat. What
I want to eat and what I need to eat are often incongruous and I have a
small battle inside my head trying to decide if I am going to “behave”
or “sin”. You know exactly what I’m talking about! I talk about that
in my book Body Clutter. I’ve shared this particular concern with you
previously, probably several times! LOL…it’s an issue I know a lot of
us all share in common. Getting a grip on how much you REALLY need
food-wise is tough. We are used to overfeeding ourselves, truth be told.
Take restaurants for example. Not only do they bring your food on PLATTERS
and not plates, they give you enough to feed your entire family. And what
do we do? The food comes, we oooh and ahhh over how big the portion is and
then we dig in. We will either eat till we’re stuffed and bag it up to
take home or we’ll eat it all and complain about how full we are. Let me
share with you how many calories are in a typical chain restaurant meal.
For fun, I’m going to share with you something I JUST ate at a Chili’s
(thinking it would be a good choice) and how blown away I was that it was
this many calories and this much fat—it’s just unbelievable! The
Chicken Caesar Salad I ate had 1,010 calories and 76 grams (yes,
SEVENTY-SIX) of FAT!!!!!!! Hello?? I was absolutely STUNNED!! That’s
just NOT doing my body ANY favors! 13 grams of that 76 fat grams were
saturated fat, too. What does that tell you? Two things:
1) BEWARE of “healthy” main course salad options at restaurants
and,
2) Restaurant salad dressings are usually really really over the
top fatwise and in calories. And that brings me back to my original point:
less food—we don’t need to eat all of that!
The all-you-eat-
mentality is particularly pronounced at restaurants. They BRAG about their
hefty portion size! So how do you handle restaurants? Know what you’re
walking into, for starters. If it is a chain restaurant, look on line to
see if you can find the menu and the nutritional info for the menu. Not
all restaurants do that, but there are other sites out there with that
info—just google it.
Second, have a back up plan. Order sauces, dressings and anything else
that you will lend a huge caloric and often, fatty punch to the meal, on
the side. All restaurants will happily accommodate…just ask. Third, if
you haven’t split your meal with a dining companion, ask for a doggie
bag right when your meal comes.
Cut your meal in HALF or more, and bag it up.
If it is off your plate, you are less apt to chow down on it and
leave with a Thanksgiving-
stuffed feeling. And last but not least—keep restaurant eating as a
treat and not a part of your weekly plan.
Eating at home is always cheaper, most likely to be more nutritious,
you control the fat and the salt and the service is predictable
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