how much to eat at a meal

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artmama
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how much to eat at a meal

Post by artmama » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:20 am

I am new to this, but I had already gone a week without between meal snacking before I started(then found this site by googlng "no snacks"). I am finding it difficult to decide how much to eat, I get "satisfied" at one sitting by not very much food but if I stop at that point I actually am hungry within a short amount of time. I think this comes from years and years of trying to eat less but more often etc.
I now find myself eating until I am full,( not stuffed), because I want to be able to have enough to get through the 5 or so hours until the next meal. I think if I just stop at the first sign of fullness or feeling the food in my stomach, I will be hungry long before I get to eat again. So I am wondering what sort of sign I should look for to stop... by the way, I have only 5-qo pounds to lose, just want to fit comfortably into my clothes again and this little bit of weight really shows on me becasue I am small.

So do I disregard all the old messages about stopping before I am full? How do you define full? Also, has anyone lost just a little bit doing this system?

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bluebunny27
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Post by bluebunny27 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:56 am

Yes, that's something that can be tricky ... you should never really eat until you feel completely full - - you should eat until you are about 70% full, hard to evaluate this of course. I know by now how much food I should have, I just look at the plate and I know ... of course this is not a very precise system, just ball parking it but I must not be too far off since I've been maintaining pretty well.

Now, I just have a reasonable portion and no seconds ...
When I was a FAT BOY I would have a big portion as the first plate and then often I would have a 2nd medium size portion as a 2nd plate. I probably only eat 60-65% of the calories I was eating before during a typical FAT BOY dinner. I used to make huge plates of spaghetti for example, huge plate, piled inches high with spaghettis and then a lot of sauce on top, spilling off the plate ... adding a ton of parmesan cheese, more salt even if the sauce is salty already ... many slices of bread with lots of butter, unbelievable ...

Yeah, it was delicious, I enjoyed it ... but it was also causing me problems and gaining way too much weight, I was enjoying it for 20 minutes and then feeling bad the rest of the day, not worht it ... so I had to make a choice ... now I would eat a third of that huuuuuuuge plate of spaghetti, really, hardly any parmesan on it, 1 slice of bread, no butter, no salt added, how boring ! ;-) I'm sure if I hadn't reversed everything I would have weighed in the 300's just a year later and then gaining more and more --
;-)

Also your mind plays games with you too. Sometimes I finish dinner for example and I think, "Oh I am still hungry, I'll never make it !!!" ;-) ... when this happens, I just drink a tall glass of water and I wait at least 10-15 minutes, usually the problem is solved and I am not hungry anymore. It just took 10-15 minutes for my brain to get the signal that I had really had enough to eat so there was no reason to panic. It's hard to stop eating once you've started, you have to have some discipline cos' it would just be too easy to have another portion and eat it all within seconds, lightning speed ... ;-)

It can easily happen ... when you start eating a meal, try to eat slowly and once you are done and still feel hungry, wait a bit longer ... mos times the problem will be resolved by itself...

Cheers !

Marc ;-)

38 Years Old, 5'10" Tall
Nov. 1st. 2008 : 280 Pounds
Nov. 1st. 2009 : 190 Pounds
(1 Year : - 90 Pounds)

Current Weight : 192 Pounds

ThomsonsPier
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Post by ThomsonsPier » Thu Jul 22, 2010 10:38 am

I don't rely on my stomach to inform me what I should be eating once I've started; I determine what to eat by noting how hungry I am and designing a meal accordingly. It has taken a while to establish the right quantity of food, but now I rarely misjudge it. Sometimes I eat too much, whereupon I'm simply less hungry at the next meal and therefore eat less, sometimes too little. In the latter case, I just get hungry early. It's rarely a problem, as I have a fairly easy schedule in which to arrange meals.

Occasionally, I do deviate when a short term requirement necessitates. For example, I won't allow myself to be hungry when driving long distances because I don't believe it to be safe (in my case; I lose alertness). In these circumstances, I simply eat and endeavour to do better next time.

Get used to what the right amount of food looks like. Measure out recommended serving sizes to begin with and go from there when you feel comfortable. I still weigh out pasta prior to cooking because otherwise I end up with double the quantity I need.
ThomsonsPier

It's a trick. Get an axe.

kccc
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Post by kccc » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:58 pm

It's an individual learning curve. Think about it this way: you're re-training your body.

Some things to consider
- Like ThomsonsPier says, evaluate "how hungry am I" BEFORE filling your plate.
- Look at what is ON your plate. Do those foods look as if they will sustain you? (For most people, SOME carbs/protein/fat at each meal help, but the proportions vary by person)
- Drink milk or juice between meals...
- Continue to reevaluate...

Good luck!

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sophiasapientia
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Post by sophiasapientia » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:13 pm

Yep, absolutely an individualized learning curve.

It took some time and trial and error but I reached a point where I can generally "eyeball" how how much is enough for me. "Enough" meaning my portions are sufficient that I'm satisfied after I eat and hunger doesn't register very highly on my radar until my next mealtime is nearing. (I also use plates -- smaller for breakfast and lunch and 9" for dinner at home -- as a general guideline but worrying about plate size isn't something that is recommended when you are first starting out.) Like ThomsonsPier, if my portions are off at one meal -- and this is far more likely to happen on S Days at this point, almost never on N Days -- I adjust accordingly at the next.
Restarted No S (3rd times a charm!) January 2010 at 145 lbs

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DaveMc
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Re: how much to eat at a meal

Post by DaveMc » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:29 pm

artmama wrote:Also, has anyone lost just a little bit doing this system?
I think you could say that a lot of people have, in the sense that a lot of people are losing zero pounds, as they maintain their current weight. (I lost about twenty pounds in my first year, just completed, but since I'm not small, that may be comparable to ten pounds for you ... Twenty pounds out of 220.)

The others have nailed it, I think, in terms of the size of meals: it's amazing how good you can get at just judging how much you need in advance. I don't use sensations of fullness as a barometer at all, I just put out what seems like a reasonable amount of food on my plate, and then stop when I've finished that. (In very rare cases I might have overshot and feel very full before I'm done, in which case I stop -- I wouldn't *force* myself to finish everything on my plate! But that happens, as I say, very rarely.)

I guess the central lesson is that your eyes are a better judge of reasonable-ness than your stomach and taste buds are: your stomach has a long lag before it gives any accurate report of how full it is, and your taste buds (or mine, at least) can get carried away with how tasty things are and urge you to keep eating!

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July2010
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Post by July2010 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:37 pm

This was something I wondered about too! Thanks for starting the topic and thanks to all who answered!
AutismMom

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 11:00 pm

I would say experiment as well. Since many people keep trying to eat as if they are on a diet, often eating low fat, I usually recommend that people play with adding about 1 T. of olive oil or the equivalent in cheese or walnuts to a meal. It doesn't make a person feel bloated but it does tend to make satiety last longer for me, but I do tend to have a protein and starch plus vegetable at most meals. If anything, that is what I would forget to add. It's funny not to use that feeling of just being satisfied and to eat more, but it is usually smart. Yet, I don't tend to feel stuffed later, just full and certainly not needing any food an hour later. However, I never eat a whole plate of dense food. Protein, starches, and fats are about 1/2 the volume of food I eat. If for some reason I don't have half a plate of vegetables and fruit, I just eat about half a plate of food. One day I was feeling mad about not losing more so I skipped salad, but I didn't eat any more of any other food to replace it. Skipping vegetables was as naughty as I needed to be! And I felt fine until the next meal.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

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Starla
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Post by Starla » Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:17 pm

I'm like ThomsonsPier too - I plate food until it looks like a reasonable meal, and then I eat the whole thing (although I'd stop if I was full before the end; this doesn't happen). This is definitely a skill you learn by experimenting over time. When I started No S I ate a bagel with cream cheese spread and an apple for breakfast, and I was getting headaches by lunchtime. I replaced the cream cheese with peanut butter, and that did the trick.

My goal is to eat enough so that I'm hungry for my next meal, but not ravenous.

Good luck!

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:04 pm

I don't worry about this at all.

Yes, my plates tend to be on the generous side; but the eating stops there.

Is it possible to overeat like this? Sure. But not by that much. And it'll be obvious when you do -- a lot of food will look like a lot of food. The undeniable sight of excess is all the incentive most people are going to need need to keep reasonably in line. It may not happen every time, but big picture, over hundreds and thousands of meals, it'll happen often enough. It can take some time for you to habitualize this aversion to excess so you can feel it before filling your plate instead of just after emptying it -- so be patient and give yourself that time.

As for feeling full, I think you'll be amazed, once you get used to eating just one plate at a time, what a powerful pavlovian signal finishing that plate sends. One = done; ding, you're full.

But don't worry about this, especially at first. It'll probably happen on its own if you just focus on the basics of those three single plate meals a day. Let those plates be big so you're not tempted to snack in between and can get the basic structure of meal based eating in place. And if it doesn't happen on it's own? Well, then at least you've got a solid foundation of good habits to build on. You're much more likely to be able to successfully address the problem than if you were coming at it with nothing. It's like trying to put siding on a house that has a frame vs. one that doesn't.

I'm relatively young (36) and do moderate regular exercise/exertion (shovelglove, urban ranger), so it's possible I can afford to worry about this less than some others here, but I think there's a large danger (for most people) in adding to their total rule-burden beyond vanilla no-s. It may be worth it, but it's more likely not.

Reinhard

clarinetgal
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Post by clarinetgal » Sat Jul 24, 2010 7:08 am

I don't have much to add, but I've noticed that I feel my best when I stop at about 70-80% fullness. As other have said, it'll take some time, but definitely experiment and see what works best for you.

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Over43
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Post by Over43 » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:28 pm

When I'm "on" I eat a plate full.
Bacon is the gateway meat. - Anthony Bourdain
You pale in comparison to Fox Mulder. - The Smoking Man

I made myself be hungry, then I would get hungrier. - Frank Zane Mr. Olympia '77, '78, '79

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