I've recently seen a few episodes of Man Vs food..... where a guy goes round doing some of these food challenges - Eating a 72oz steak plus multiple trimmings/side dishes in less than an hour..... and Its really made me think about all my fellow sleevers out in the US.

Here in Spain we go out to eat at least once a week, and I'll have a starter and maybe I'll finish it over the course or an hour or so, maybe 'll take some home with me. But all the portions of 'normal' food I saw served up in the US restaurants seems HUGE by comparison.....

Now I even look at my husbands dinner and feel quite queasy at just looking at the size of it....before I could happily sit down and have a larger portion than him, now I am happy with my 3 or 4 oz portion of whatever.....

Its amazing how quick my attitude has changed after almost 10 weeks....

Portions are rediculous in restaurants. My DH and I have both had WLS. We share a "Senior" meal and still have food left over. If we share a regular meal we have enough to take home for both of us to eat later and still throw away part. I too remember being able to eat it all. And I wasn't as uncomfortable afterward as I am now if I eat one extra bite. When my band was unfilled prior to the sleeve surgery, I still couldn't eat an entire senior (smaller) meal in a restaurant. And I felt like a total pig eating that much after being banded for 2 1/2 years. LOL

Now when I watch what people eat I'm just amazed that the stomach can hold so much. LOL My 14 year old grandson is very thin. He wrestles in winter and has started playing football this year. In the off seasons he works hard to stay in shape for wrestling. But the food that kid can put away is unreal! He's 5'9" and weights 140 lbs. I have no doubt if I ate the calories he does at my activity level (and age) I'd weigh over 300 lbs. He trys to eat enough Protein and loves fruits and vegetables, so he eats a healthy diet... it's just so much of it. LOL

Even being pre-surgery and can hold my fair share of food I feel gross when I watch Man vs Food. I can't imagine stuffing that much inside your body. I don't know how the host of that show doesn't have a heart attack each episode.:thumbup:

If you are really interested in portion sizes, check out this website quiz. I used to do this quiz with my middle school students in science class.

NHLBI-Portion Distortion Quiz

Yeah, portions in the US are pretty outrageous. When I moved to Canada, I noticed 2 things: 1) way fewer extremely obese people - I don't think I've seen a 500-lb man on a scooter once here, whereas in the US it was a weekly occurence 2) smaller portions at restaurants. I firmly believe that the 2 are related.

However, even so, portions in Canada are still too large. I'm still blown away at things like clam chowder in a BREAD BOWL. Where I'm from, it's common to have some bread with your Soup, but in my family it was a SLICE of bread less than 0.5" thick. Here, people eat the entire LOAF of bread with their soup! :s

Have you guys been to Cheesecake Factory? I used to go there for Sunday brunch. Their omelet plate was the size of a small pizza, and it filled the entire thing. My "side of sausage" which had to be 1/4lbs was on another monstrous plate. Even when I was 380+ lbs, I couldn't finish all that.

Oh, and Sonic started serving 1/2lb coneys. Because apparently a foot long chili dog isn't enough food... You can make it a combo and add a 1,400 calorie shake and 700 calorie onion rings to make a meal of ... 3,200 calories. :thumbup1: Good lord.

I eat out a lot, and I have a hard time finding anything even remotely reasonable to eat. Fortunately most of the chain restaurants have nutritional information online, so I can prepare ahead of time. The people I work with like to go to California pizza Kitchen for lunch, and my go-to order there is the grilled chicken breast and broccoli plate from the kids' menu. It's a total of 240 calories, and usually I can't even finish it!

When I go out with DH, I just eat a few bites from his plate and am extremely satisfied. Generally between the two of us we can't even finish a restaurant-sized meal!