My Mum would call this 'eyes bigger than' syndrome; and it's true. Problem is often my eyes fully understand what my stomach wants; and, even when I am well intentioned, I can still very much get it wrong.
Correct portion sizes take some getting used to. My breakfast portion of 30g of oats is actually tiny and over the course of time, by degrees, if I don't weigh out those 30g, it will inch up and up and up. 'Thats close enough' usually isn't, and by quite a long way.
I have deliberately set out to live with a livable diet - one that isn't going to impinge on the just 'being' that is my normal life.
Despite giving up sugar and reducing carbs - I still can't eat what the hell I like. I want to lose those excess lbs, not just maintain what I have; and at my age and in my condition - this isn't just going to give up and submit. I have to manage the expectation of both my eyes and stomach!
Be aware too, that correct portion sizes may vary between cooked and uncooked variations - 40g of uncooked pasta is vastly different if the recommended portion size is 40g of cooked pasta for example.
And food labels give every appearance of trying to be helpful and honest - but they can obscure key pieces of information. The fact that they are unstandardised helps with the confusion too.
Even if you are pretty confident about the portions you should be eating - like with me and breakfast cereal, its worth just weighing a portion every now and again to see how far your eyes have given in at your stomach's behest!!
It's a hackneyed old practice, but changing plate size can help - there is nothing more disconsolate that a tiny portion swimming in space on your dinner plate. And large plates encourage you to load up. Downsizing is a good ploy to help when its all hard work in the early days.
And in maintenance mode; keep mis calculating what you're supposed to be eating, and it will just add on calories you don't need - because you'll never see them mounting up.
I was actually very shocked at what I thought was an acceptable portion as against what I read was the recommended portion. Very shocked indeed. And I don't consider myself a particularly large eater.
Exercising some restraint when eating those meals that I can have, is helping - I can feel it helping. It gives me some faith that what I am attempting isn't impossible.
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