Everyday Systems

I eat a lot of soups and stews and hot cereal, especially this time of year. Any rules of thumb about how to "virtually plate" a bowl of something, plus a salad or green vegetable and a slice of bread?

I put the bowl on a plate and put the other food on the plate. I tried just having a separate plate, but that seemed too much like the slippery slope.
Kathleen

I have two kinds of bowls. They both hold the same amount of food. One won't allow me to put anything else on a dinner plate; the other will. I really don't worry about it.

The single most important thing is too see it all in front of you at once, so you can eyeball excess.

As long as you can do this, I wouldn't stress too much about whether or not you can balance the bread on your bowl or not. If you can make it work with the bowl and other food on a single plate, as Kathleen does, great. That's certainly safer. And if you find you're "slippery sloping" into excess, then it's something you can always fall back on later.

Reinhard

Thanks! That's very sensible. As, I guess, I should have expected.

Most of my "eat in a bowl" stuff tends to be pretty filling and/or low in calories, so it would be hard to get too carried away with it.

I am a newbie, just 10 days in (with green days green! )

I took my favorite bowl, filled it with food (a pasta, vegie and chicken dish), then shlopped it onto a plate to see how it fit. There was room for a banana or a piece of bread. So I know I can use that bowl as my 'plate'.

I was really happy to learn that, as my favorite meal is a base of vegies with some meat on top, kinda like a taco salad without the tortilla. I add some bleu cheese dressing sometimes, or some salsa. This is my default meal.

Glad to be here! Lost 2.5 lbs the first week! I don't expect that to keep up, but it was a nice present!

My bowls have rims that I put bread or what not on. (Okay, not salad, but I'm not really a soup and salad person, I just put the veggies IN the soup ) Anyway, taking into consideration the depth of the bowl and the width of the rim doing this accomodates the same amount of food as one of my normal plates. I just don't eat bowl food when company is over.

So, I'm doing small bowls and a salad plate on the side (instead of a dinner plate). It seems like a very reasonable amount of food. Like, last night (OK, it was an S day anyway, but it was still a No S type of dinner) I had a small bowl of split-pea soup, and on my salad pate a cup or so of sauteed brussels sprouts and a slice of bread.

Thanks, everyone, for the advice!