Something happened to me last night and I thought I’d share.

As some of you know, I live in a dorm and I’m on a meal plan.  This means I normally don’t need to buy or cook food.  However, last night I was away from home for dinner, and decided to pick up something from the grocery store.  Now, whatever I got would need to be good for one meal only, because I have no fridge.  Thankfully, I knew of a grocery store that sells prepackaged meals.

I figured I’d go with a salad.  I mean, how can you go wrong with salad?  I went for something I considered generally healthy: “spring greens” salad with chicken.  And that’s when I discovered… the uber-portions of doom! The small salads were 32 oz, packed tight.  That’s 4 cups of salad.  That’s 4 servings of vegetables in one meal.  I’m not even sure how much chicken there was, but I’d bet good money there was more than one portion of that as well.  (Don’t ask how large the “medium” and “large” salads were—I suspect they were meant for families.)

What sort of dressing would go on this 4-cup salad?  There was a selection, and you got one package free with a “small” salad.  I chose a low-cal one: italian herb dressing.  I was looking at the labels, checking out calories per serving size: this one had 22.  The other “light” dressings were about 50-60, and the non-light dressings (say, Caesar) were about 90.  BUT, the question is, “how much is a serving?” And the answer: 1 tbsp, or 15 ml.  Guess how many servings there were per package.  Answer: 3.

Of course, with all this knowledge in hand, I used a little bit of the dressing, ate about half the salad, and then gave the rest of it to a perpetually-hungry friend of mine to finish.

Just goes to show that you really need to know your serving sizes.  Not even supermarkets are safe anymore!

Julie

Way to work through it Julie. I’ll give you my tip on working through salads. If your out dinning, ask to get your dressing on the side, or if it comes in a little package, put it in a small bowl. Then instead of pouring the dressing on top of the salad, instead, dip your folk in the dressing and then pick up some salad. It works great to get the taste of the dressing along with eating only as much as you need. Do the dip before every bite and you’ll eat slower, and eat less dressing. See if it works for you.

Thanks for the reminder to keep on our toes.  Portion size is one of those things I’m having to completely retrain myself on.  Eating smaller meals and snacking healthy in-between them has helped a lot. 

What is strange is finally feeling “hungry” again.  I used to eat so much that I wouldn’t feel hungry by the next meal time rolled around - but I would eat anyway of course.

Things are definitely improving - in fact Sunday night we went out to eat with some friends.  I ordered a smaller meal and just naturally stopped eating before it was done and for the first time ever in my life I actually asked for a box to take leftovers home.

I remember eating whole boxes of Mac n’ cheese, rice crispies the size of footballs, blue cheese dressing by the scoops. I actually thought the pint size of Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream was having dessert without leftovers!

I was never ‘trained’ or ‘educated’ by either my school systems or parents so I was clueless. Absolutely clueless. Then a few years ago I actually looked at the “labels”. I made Mac n’ cheese, looked at the label, pulled out a measuring cup, filled it up, dumped it into a bowl and just stared at it. This little amount of food was like 450 calories. What!?!? That wouldn’t get me to the next meal or even snack for that matter. I promptly gave half of that one serving to my 4 year old.

I haven’t touched mac n’ cheese since.

Now I don’t buy ANYTHING unless I read the label and I won’t go out to eat unless I have looked up the nutritional info on their respective web site and/or cross reference with my Calorie King Palm software. I even weigh my food out with a *digital* scale down to the ounces/grams. After years of misusing portion sizes it will take me awhile to program my visual capabilities.

I still test myself...even this morning! I scooped what I thought was a serving size of cottage cheese and I was actually just a few grams under so I’m heading in the right direction.

Zathras - 01 February 2006 11:10 AM

What is strange is finally feeling “hungry” again.  I used to eat so much that I wouldn’t feel hungry by the next meal time rolled around - but I would eat anyway of course.

Oh wow Chris! Exactly!

The first few times I felt my stomach growling indicating I was hungry, I thought I was having...um....’plumbing’ difficulties.

Carrie - 01 February 2006 11:22 AM

The first few times I felt my stomach growling indicating I was hungry, I thought I was having...um....’plumbing’ difficulties.

Hey Carrie,

I actually fast once a year for the Jewish day of atonement (Yom Kippur).  This is a 25-6 hour fast, and I keep doing even though I’m no longer a particularly practicing Jew.  I find it’s really useful to remember what hunger feels like, through all the stages I’m likely to go through.  The fast starts at sundown and ends just after sundown the following night.

I find the hardest times for me, in terms of feeling hungry, are late morning / early afternoon on the day of the fast, around 11 am - 1 pm.  After that, my body kind of settles into the mood of “okay, I guess I’m not getting food.  I’ll stop bugging her about it.” Later in the afternoon, though I don’t feel hungry, I feel myself noticably slowing down, taking longer to do tasks (especially mental tasks) than normal.

I find it’s actually a really useful exercise to do once a year.  I’m not sure I’d do it more often, but it’s a good way to track myself at other points in the year.  ("I’m feeling really tired… when was the last time I ate?") It also reminds me that it can never be so bad as it is for that one day. ("Drat, I forgot to bring lunch.  Ah well, I’ve lived through this before...")

Just my two cents on the “feeling hungry” thing.

Julie