Tuesday, January 24, 2012

READ THE LABEL!


As I started this, I decided that I didn’t want to count calories and just eat lettuce. I wanted to cook one meal and eat what my family eats. I love to cook and I love good food. So, I decided that my rules are:

1. To eat salad every day for lunch

2. Eat appropriate serving sizes at my other meals

3. Not eat after the kids’ bedtime

I thought that sounded realistic and doable. But this appropriate serving size thing is KILLING me. See, for a very long time I have had extremely large portions and sometimes seconds of extremely large portions. I can see that it’s going to take more than a week to train myself. See, if I’m not stuffed, I don’t think I’ve eaten enough - which is absurd. How much better will my body feel eating smaller portions? I know I’ll feel better but somehow, I’ve got to convince my brain.

Did you know that a serving size of ice cream is a ½ cup? I mean, really – have you ever seen anyone actually put just a ½ cup of ice cream in a bowl? Well, I don’t think I have. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I haven’t. So, I did an experiment. I put an Amy-sized serving of ice cream in a bowl and then measured it. It was a little more than 1½ cups - three times the recommended serving size! One might say, “Well, there you go, there’s your problem” and I guess I would agree. Part of it is that my Lobster (my husband – I’ll tell the story another time) has these ginormous cereal bowls that he likes to use and I have taken to using them as well. A ½ cup looks like a toddler serving in the bottom of those things. But I’ll have to tell him that using those big huge bowls have contributed to my big huge #&@!.

I guess what it comes down to is READ THE LABEL! I can’t trust my brain to tell me what a serving size is, so I’m going to have to read and measure - at least at first. And another key is knowing what not to keep in the house. I can’t control myself when it comes to potato chips. If they are in the house, I must eat them. Especially if it’s Lays Balsamic Sweet Onion flavor. Oh, those are THE best. So, anyway, I just can’t buy chips. Lobster likes to take chips when he makes sandwiches for lunch, so not keeping chips in the house is inconvenient for him. (But then so is thinking there are chips in the cabinet and waking up to find that your wife ate the whole bag whilst you were peacefully snoozing the night away.) If he buys them, he has to take them to work where I won’t think about them every minute. It may seem silly, but I have to set myself up for success.

All in all, it was a good week with a few setbacks. One was my youngest’s birthday cake, but we can talk about that later. As you can see, I’ve included a picture of myself with today’s post. I don’t love doing it, but it’s necessary. I also took measurements of my body so I can better track any loss. Not fun, but again, necessary. I know it’s not pleasant to look at, but just be glad I’ve got clothes on!

1 comment:

  1. You're on the right track Amy. There will always be set backs those are called "life". I know this is hard but I also know that you CAN do this. Just remember that it will not happen over night, it will happen over time though. Call me if you need a cheerleader - I'm always here - fighting the urge to eat the potato chips in my house too!

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