Everyday Systems

Hi. I'm currently doing well on No s. Tackling my emotional eating with the help of an excellent self- help book which just resonated with me.

I was eating fruit/ veg for snack in between meals but have weaned off this. My day consists of 3 plates and every second day I have a sweet. So I don't do S days as they led me to a cycle of excessive binge eating.

The issue I have is that I feel uncomfortable after eating one full plate of full. So I thought maybe I was overdoing it.

My current favourite breakfast is approx 50 grams of oatmeal in one cup of milk. I add 1 chopped banana / 1 grated Apple -and 3medjool dates. Irs delicious but I do feel quite full after finishing my bowl.

It's my 4th day now and it got me
Thinking incase the medjool date was too sweet to eat daily.

Also if u guys thoughts this is too large of a portion?
I ended up downloading my fitness pal and added all the foods and it came to 600 calories. I don't ever calorie count so this was a one-off. The sugars were quite high and showed 74 grams of sugar just for breakfast alone.



Is this an okay meal or is it excessive? Thanks in advance for any advice.

I would consider that OK. It's very similar to my breakfast (if you look at the bircher muesli/overnight oats thread you'll see what I have). The last time I looked at the side of the pack of oats it suggested 40g of oats as a serving size, so if you're worried, maybe you could try going down to 40g but personally I'm certainly happy with 50g.

It's all good, healthy stuff going in, no artificial sugar, no fat, no highly processed carbs. That sounds like a good breakfast to me.

Thanks for the reply. It was looking at your breakfast that gave me the idea!! But I didn't want to add seeds x

Hi there - Like Skycat, I think 50gms of oats would be ok, but I think the main thing is that it doesn't really matter what the calories are - if you are uncomfortably stuffed afterwards, then it's too much for you... and I believe that's what counts here - how do you feel about it?

xx

It keeps me going untill a late lunch. I only feel about 20 mins to an hour after eating. I'm not sure if it's a psychological thing though. I hate that uncomfortable full feeling. But when I was binge eating I could eat an unlimited quantity of junk and would never be satisfied. I know it's good healthy food but I'm scared of I reduce the portion size I will be too hungry for my next meal.

babybird wrote:It keeps me going untill a late lunch. I only feel about 20 mins to an hour after eating. I'm not sure if it's a psychological thing though. I hate that uncomfortable full feeling. But when I was binge eating I could eat an unlimited quantity of junk and would never be satisfied. I know it's good healthy food but I'm scared of I reduce the portion size I will be too hungry for my next meal.

You could always try it one day and see if reducing it slightly makes a difference in the stuffed feeling but still allows you to make it to lunch. What if you try a negligible difference--40-45 g of oats, one less date, and slightly less milk if the consistency is off.

See if that works better for you. If it does, then you can consider whether your other plated meals still make you feel stuffed or if they are a good amount. If they leave you stuffed still, then try shaving off a bit until you get to a better range for you. I use smaller plates a lot of times because I get too full on dinner plates. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing kind of thing though--it's kind of one of those things you play with until you hit on what works for you with plating.

Your meal sounds fine to me. More important than calories, or what we think, is how you feel, both after the meal, and in the hours afterwards until your lunch. I usually try to aim for a meal that will leave me peckish (but not ravenous) about an hour before the next meal is due.

I rarely read on here when other people list their food, as it usually sounds super healthy and tiny and then I feel like I'm a bit of a piggy!

I agree with Merry, just play around with it - but don't view it too seriously, it's just a fun experiment, with you as the guinea pig

Also, if you do misjudge, you'll only be hungry for a few hours, so it's not an emergency, right? You'll be at lunch soon enough, and then you can go back to your normal breakfast the next day, with some new information.

Best wishes!

ironchef wrote:
I rarely read on here when other people list their food, as it usually sounds super healthy and tiny and then I feel like I'm a bit of a piggy!

YES YES YES!! Me too. Although I feel happy that I can eat more. I really like food LOL!!

Did you say it's your fourth day? Please don't think you have to know the exact right amount of food so soon. For one thing, it will likely change over time.

For me, it was more important to try to gauge how much I needed so that I got legitimately hungry about an hour or two before the next meal. I preferred to err on the side of too much food than too little at first. (That is all much harder since I'm a senior citizen now, but it worked well for a few years.)

Since I also tend to put a fair amount of "water-rich" foods such as veggies and a fruit on my plate and take my time, I feel pretty full after meals. The feeling does go away relatively soon. If they are mostly dense foods (meat, starch, fat), I aim at being less full. The volume would be about a palm size of meat,
and two fists' volume of starch plus the equivalent of 1-2 tablespoons of fat.
(My big problem before No S was what I ate outside of meals, and I don't mean snacking! It was way beyond that.)

For the most part, the shorter a person is, the less she will need to sustain a low weight. Some short women have to eat pretty small plates of food to lose weight. Exceptions exist, but aren't likely here.

Just keep going!