Tuesday, March 17, 2009

What's a Portion?

Well, thinking about living well, brought my number one downfall to the surface again: portion control. I just can't do it very well. The other day I was watching T.V. at the gym and Bethenny Frankel (from "Real Housewives of New York City") was on promoting her new "skinny girl something" book. She was asked what the key to being skinny was and, surprise surprise, she said it was portion control. She actually said you can eat anything as long as you stop after 3 or 4 bites. 3 or 4 bites???? She actually gave the example of eating only 3 or 4 bites of a hamburger. Can anyone really do that? I don't eat hamburgers, etc. very often, but when I do, I can never stop after 3 bites.

A Recent Portion Control "Incident"
The other day my husband and toddler went out to lunch at a brewery. We each (well except the toddler) had a beer (my other calorie downfall - alcohol), and we shared a mushroom cheeseburger with fries and a seared ahi tuna salad. Well, technically my husband ordered the burger, and I ordered the salad. But I made it VERY clear from the beginning that we were sharing. I had almost all of the tuna, most of the salad, some of the burger and TONS of fries. According to Bethenny, I should have probably stopped after 3 or 4 fries. How many did I have? I honestly have no idea, but I think it could have easily been between 20 and 40. Wow! That seems insane.

Portion Control Action Plan
So what have I learned? I guess one plan could be to become more aware of how much I am eating. I am pretty good about awareness at home (most times and when I am not too hungry). But when I go out and am hungry (like I was the other day because the "lunch" took place around 3:30), I truly lose control.

So I guess next time, I can put a few fries on a separate plate and eat them rather than picking off the giant mountain of fries and ending up eating most of them. We'll see how it goes... :) I am sure there are many more portion control posts in my future...

Be well,
Andrea