Portions

Before I get deep into recipes and other topics, I need to address portions. They are hard to comprehend on the internet. I had known that I was eating 2-3 times the normal serving size for most meals most of my adult life. It just seemed standard. It was what the restaurants served. If I asked for a to-go box, I got looks from the server (my perception), and besides, leftovers were just not as appealing. So might as well clean my plate! And you know those starving children in Africa. And no dessert unless plate was cleaned. All ridiculous phrases only encouraging my overeating.

Before I qualified for surgery through the insurance company, I had to meet with a dietician six times and learn about nutrition. Day one she pulled these nasty pieces of plastic out of a drawer and plopped them on the table in front of me. The smaller portions are what we're supposed to eat. Funny, with the mac and cheese...I used to eat the entire box, not just double portions. The plastic food totally grossed me out; reminded me of sticky germ-coated toys from Sunday School growing up. Icky.  I've barely touched mashed potatoes or mac and cheese since this moment. Ha.

But it's true. I believe that even more than WHAT we eat, HOW much we eat is killing us. Our stomach stretches, and accommodates how much we shove in, and actually gets used to that. Then our metabolism is SET to that, and even if we start eating much less, it feels like we're starving and we go back to overeating. So for me, even though I had radically changed WHAT I ate, how I prepared it, all the good expected things, I could NOT stop overeating. It was just all too good. This is why I chose bariatric surgery; gastric sleeve surgery. It cut out 2/3 of my stomach, forcing me to eat a 1/3 less than I was used to eating. And it's worked.

These four glass containers represent how much I eat per day now. Plus beverages. It's about 4 cups of food per day. I've found myself grazing a bit between these small meals, but a bit of weight comes back on when I do this (curses, goldfish crackers). If I revert back to these 4 small meals, the weight stabilizes again. 

I usually spend Sunday afternoon cooking one or two dishes, then I immediately split them up into these containers so they are ready for the week. Realize, one of these containers IS the meal. There isn't a pile of corn chips next to it, or a coke. Or a brownie for dessert. None of that. I can't eat and drink at the same time. I'll do another post soon on what I personally can or can't eat or drink. It's been a learning curve.