I was just browsing through some of the posts at the Cooking Light message boards. That’s really my number one place to surf for recipes and cooking ideas. I have gotten a lot of good recipes from this website, their magazines, and cookbooks. Anyway, there are a couple of ongoing discussions there about two new books about “eating as the french do” and “the Fat Fallacy”, both of which talk about eating much smaller portions, really savoring what you eat, etc.
Good ideas, and ones I have been wanting to adopt for quite a while. Next month, it will be 3 years since Tim and I started our healthy eating lifestyle change. We’ve done pretty good overall. Up and down, up and down, but fairly steady overall. Holidays are bad, as we tend to eat a lot more. Winter is bad for me because I have a natural desire to cook comfort foods (chilis, stews, soups, cobbler, etc) and homemade bread. Winter is also bad for us because we are really limited in how often we can walk because of the weather. I don’t like to get sick, and so I often don’t want to walk if it’s really cold or misty or windy.
So… (click more to read the rest)
When we started our new way of eating, and I started cooking differently, I told Tim that in addition to all the other changes we would make, we’d have to work on portion control. That is still a tough one for both of us. Tim is actually better at it than I am. I was raised with a serious “clean your plate, there are starving children in Africa” mentality. If there is food on my plate, I feel utterly compelled to eat every bit of it. Even more so if we go out to eat. Darn, we just paid 14.95 for that entree for me, no way am I going to leave it there on the plate. We do try to bring home to-go boxes, but the portions are so large in restaurants, that I always end up overeating. We tend to overeat at home too. I know that, again, I am worse than Tim is on this point. He has gotten really good about not going back for seconds, and MOST of the time, he’s pretty good about his serving size (more story, and a picture to follow). I, however, tend to put the same amount (or almost) on my plate that Tim does. Which, obviously, won’t work for me, since I’m not as big as Tim and can’t handle as many calories.
Anyway, I was reading this thread at Cooking Light, in case you are interested. I know that Gail and I have often talked of this, as have Amanda and I. Amanda recently bought the book “French Women Don’t Get Fat” or something to that effect. Which, in fancy terms, really all boils down to portion control and controlling how much food you put in your body. Much harder than it sounds, especially once you’ve conditioned yourself to eating the larger portions that we all eat. Gail and I have a theory about plate size – we need to buy smaller plates! The dinner plates we use are huge, and I know that Tim and I both have a tendency to mostly fill the plate when we eat a meal. I try to use the smaller salad plate sometime, but I’m not nearly as diligent about it as I should be.
Which brings me to the second point of this blog entry. First was the Cooking Light article, and general thoughts on the topic. Second is a picture I took last night. Now, before you wag your head and say “that Stacy, she’s always taking pictures of the goofiest things”, I have to first tell you that Tim TOLD me to go get my camera and take a picture of his plate. You see, we had chili-cheese black bean enchiladas last night (which are made with soy crumbles and not real meat, SHHH, don’t tell Tim), and Spanish Rice last night. Now, knowing that the rice was white and not that great for us, I tried a trick that I have been trying to do more of. I “build” a little small side salad on part of our dinner plate, instead of putting the salad in a separate bowl or plate. That way, the plate is already “visually” partially full, and it’s my intention that we will put less on our plates of other food. Well, WRONG. Not Tim, not last night. He was putting mounds of rice in every available inch on his plate. I think he ended up with 3 big mounds! 🙂 When I saw him loading up his plate, I told him “I made a salad on there so you wouldn’t get too much of everything else”. To which he replied “But, it looks so good, it’s good enough to take a picture of. Go get your camera and take a picture of my plate!!”. So, tada, I did!
It looks great! but……….the problem was–you didn’t make the salad big enough! If it had been bigger, taken up more room on plate, there would have been less room for rice! Or, and here’s a novel idea, don’t make the rice! I do use a salad plate to eat on when I’m here at the house. And what I hear about the restaurant thing is, to ask for a take out plate and put HALF of your dinner on it BEFORE you start eating it! Sounds good, but really hard to do!
Did he get seconds after that plate? !! It looks really nice on your plates! Is making me hungry now!
Gail – yes, I’ve heard that about the restaurant thing and going ahead and putting half in the to-go box before you start eating. But I have never done that – HAVE YOU? If so, I’m impressed with your willpower. Eating out is a big deal to me and I like to enjoy it, so I don’t ever do that at the beginning. I try to be good and get one and not eat everything on my plate, but I don’t always succeed there either. Do you put it in a to-go box at the beginning, inquiring minds want to know!!!!!
NO! I sometimes have good intentions though! and sometimes I do only eat part of it and then put the rest of it to go but usually it’s hard for me not to eat all of it!
OH, GOOD! It’s not just me, I feel much better now!
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