newbie with a question about snacks

bettyB · Post by **bettyB** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:21 pm

Hi all

I am a newbie - just seeking some clarification on the 'no snacking' role.

I snack a lot - I graze all day and I want to stop! So I am just eating brekie, lunch and dinner. nothing in between.

However, does having 1 thing and then something else for lunch count as No S or not??

for example - Today for lunch I had a banana, some veg and cous cous, and a yoghurt.

I obviously didnt have all 3 on the same plate! Have I done it wrong?
I am trying to fill up at mealtimes so I dont snack in between.

The yoghurt was not a 'sweet' it was just plain and I just had it to fill me up at the end of the meal so I can last till dinner without snacking.

Please can someone clarify if this is ok or not??

thanks!!

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:29 pm

For these situations, you need to use a "virtual" plate. Look at the separate pieces of your lunch and decide if it is all one plate worth of food. Your lunch sounds pretty good as long as the vegetables and cous cous did not take up a full plate.

However, if one day you had soup in a bowl, a salad in another bowl, plus a plate full of chicken and rice, this would be a violation of the one plate rule. The soup and salad would be adding to an already full plate.

HTH!

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:32 pm

For now at least, I would put them on one plate, or at least have everything together in front of you before you start eating anything. One reason for this is that you want to see everything you're going to eat together before you start eating. If it's excessive, you can see the excess.

I used to have a problem with add-ons to meals. I'd eat my breakfast, then I'd still want a little something more, so I'd eat something more (usually another piece of bread, or something like that). That had gotten to the point where I was nibbling my way through most of the morning. No S put the brakes on that bad habit.

One problem with letting yourself get more after you've plated your meal is that your stomach takes a while (I've read 20 minutes) to register being full. That means that, if you eat until you feel full, it actually means you should have stopped eating 20 minutes ago, and now you've eaten too much. You might still feel hungry at the end of a meal, but that doesn't mean you're still going to feel that way in 20 or 30 minutes. When I used to regularly eat seconds at meals, I'd often eat until I felt full, then feel unpleasantly stuffed a while later. You don't want that, because not only is feeling stuffed unpleasant, if you regularly feel stuffed you're probably going to be overweight as well, with all the health and other consequences of that.

bettyB · Post by **bettyB** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:41 pm

thanks SpiritSong and Nicest of the Damned

Very useful advice! A virtual plate is a very good idea. And I will try to assemble all the food I plan to eat for a meal on one plate so I can see if it's ok.

I have also recently invested in some 'normal' sized dinner plates as the fancy ones I bought when i moved into my flat are overly big! Very easy to over eat with an extra large plate!!

The cous cous and veg was only a small portion, probably half a normal plate, so the banana and yoghurt probably make up the full plate. Good to know i haven't messed up already!

I get what you mean, if I had a full plate of food the yoghurt would not have been ok. But then I suppose if i'd had twice as much cous cous i wouldn't have managed to eat the yoghurt anyway! so it's common sense, yet again!!

Sienna · Post by **Sienna** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:54 pm

You've already gotten good advice, but I wanted to add that I think that timing is key.

Virtual plating is great. But barring being at an event that makes it impossible, I think its best to take out and assemble everything you plan to eat *before* you eat it - at least when you are first starting out. Or at least say to yourself "I'm going to eat a yogurt, half plate of cous cous and a banana" instead of eating the half plate of cous cous, deciding your still hungry and getting a banana and yogurt to fill you up. Because when you are starting, I think its best to build a fence around the rules so to speak - so that you can form solid new habits and avoid the slippery slope back into your old habits.

Unfortunately, for many of us its not a long way from: "well, I'm still hungry but my plate was only half full so I'll grab an additional piece of fruit, because it would have fit on the plate anyhow" to "well, I still want more food, and I *could* have piled that pasta higher and it wouldn't have fallen off the plate, so I'll have a little more".

You may have a few meals where you don't eat enough and you get hungry. I sure did when I started (I was used to perma-snacking, so plating and eating a full meal was like a foreign concept to me). But the fact of the matter is that even completely skipping a meal isn't going to kill me. So not eating quite enough for a few meals may make me hungry, grumpy, unhappy etc, but its not going to kill me. Now I have a better sense of what my body needs to be happy. (And gradually how much that is per meal has decreased.)

So no, I don't think the amount of food you had for lunch seems at all unreasonable. However, for your own benefit, I would highly recommend pulling it all out at once and putting it in front of you (even if putting it all on the same plate is impractical).

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:08 pm

Sienna wrote:Unfortunately, for many of us its not a long way from: "well, I'm still hungry but my plate was only half full so I'll grab an additional piece of fruit, because it would have fit on the plate anyhow" to "well, I still want more food, and I *could* have piled that pasta higher and it wouldn't have fallen off the plate, so I'll have a little more".

This would be me. Hence the clarity of ONE PLATE=DONE NO EXCUSES.

I am almost never in a situation where I HAVE to virtual plate that could not legitimately be considered an S day, anyway.

bettyB · Post by **bettyB** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:30 pm

Sienna wrote: I think its best to take out and assemble everything you plan to eat *before* you eat it - at least when you are first starting out. Or at least say to yourself "I'm going to eat a yogurt, half plate of cous cous and a banana" instead of eating the half plate of cous cous, deciding your still hungry and getting a banana and yogurt to fill you up.

thanks - I will try to do this from now on. I know what you mean about retrospectively filling the plate, it will easily lead to more food intake than 1 plate literally would have provided.

I did plan my lunch - I knew I was going to have those 3 things so I wouldnt end up going 'Ok I've had some cous cous but i'm still hungry, what shall I have next?'

I have always suffered from what I call "compulsive and"
It means that I find myself saying i'll just have a sandwich, and some chips, and a yoghurt, and some chocoloate, and a sugary coffee etc etc until i have and-ed myself all day long!!

I think that planning everything for a meal in one go, with a plate to make sure it's not excessive, might be the best way for me to stop and-ing all day long!

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:45 pm

bettyB wrote:I have always suffered from what I call "compulsive and"
It means that I find myself saying i'll just have a sandwich, and some chips, and a yoghurt, and some chocoloate, and a sugary coffee etc etc until i have and-ed myself all day long!!

I think that planning everything for a meal in one go, with a plate to make sure it's not excessive, might be the best way for me to stop and-ing all day long!

You might also want to set a limit on how many different things you can have at one meal. It's kind of arbitrary, but it does put a lid on the "and's".

I do something like this in restaurants. At a restaurant on an N day, I can order an entree, and that's it. No appetizers or bread or chips and salsa or anything like that before the entree (doesn't matter if you pay extra for them or not, they're not allowed). If the entree comes with sides, those are OK, but no additional sides are allowed. No desserts, of course. It makes it easy to see when I'm following the rule and when I'm not, which is essential.

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:34 pm

While Nicest's advice is sound, I would like to urge you to always consider variety. Meals of several different things (in smaller servings, obviously) are more satisfying, I find.

Nicest of the Damned wrote:
bettyB wrote:I have always suffered from what I call "compulsive and"
It means that I find myself saying i'll just have a sandwich, and some chips, and a yoghurt, and some chocoloate, and a sugary coffee etc etc until i have and-ed myself all day long!!

I think that planning everything for a meal in one go, with a plate to make sure it's not excessive, might be the best way for me to stop and-ing all day long!
You might also want to set a limit on how many different things you can have at one meal. It's kind of arbitrary, but it does put a lid on the "and's".

I do something like this in restaurants. At a restaurant on an N day, I can order an entree, and that's it. No appetizers or bread or chips and salsa or anything like that before the entree (doesn't matter if you pay extra for them or not, they're not allowed). If the entree comes with sides, those are OK, but no additional sides are allowed. No desserts, of course. It makes it easy to see when I'm following the rule and when I'm not, which is essential.

bettyB · Post by **bettyB** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:42 am

Thanks nicest and kevin.

I know what you mean, nicest, I need to stop and-ing with actual separate foods, but I also agree with kevin that variety is important.

A bad and example is to have couscous, and a yoghurt, and a banana, and an orange, and a sandwich, and some chips
That's too many food items! and one after another (be it on the same plate or a virtual one!)

However, a good and example (for variety) would be cous cous, and salad, and veg, and hummus and chickpeas. It's one meal (a lovely cous cous salad) one one plate and not loads of individual mini meals.

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:56 am

I disagree that there can be too many items on a plate as long as the sum total of the plate is not overfull.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Japanese concept of bento lunches. Basically, it's food in a very compact box. But a well-made bento has a lot of variety.

From Save Money with Bento

This is a 750ml box. All the food in it will fit comfortably on a regular dinner plate, by the way. But notice that there is a lot of variety: chicken drumstick, fried rice, cherry tomatoes, green and yellow peppers, broccoli and blueberries.

Even though it's small, this is an incredibly satisfying meal BECAUSE of the variety.