How Do You Monitor Portions?

[Alex Brecher 10,494]

The right food choices are essential to weight loss surgery success, but the right portion sizes are just as important. Eat too much, and you can stop losing weight or harm your health. The dangers of “too much” are obvious with unhealthy foods – consider eating a hundreds of calories’ worth of brownies in a few bites and getting dumping syndrome soon afterwards – but they are also present with healthy foods.

You can easily get way too many calories from healthy or high-protein, low-carb foods such as Peanut Butter, cheese, avocados, and even Protein Shakes and bars, if you do not regulate portions. The result shows up on the scale. Even with low-calorie foods, eating too much can lead to long-term problems if you train yourself to be full only after large volumes instead of a few ounces as you had right after surgery.

Do you monitor your portion sizes? How? Do you weigh your foods and use measuring cups and spoons to get exact amounts? Do you eyeball it? Do you go by feelings of fullness? Do you use single-serve packages of food whenever possible so you can eat the whole thing? Do you have some foods that you measure and others that you are less strict with? Do you use plates and bowls with a size that you are familiar with so you know how much you can eat?

Share how you keep your portions in check on your weight loss surgery diet!

[Farcaster 80]

I picked up a digital food scale and I weigh everything that I eat at home. This has helped me to get much better at estimating what my portion sizes are when I am out. I then track everything in Fitbit. There is some approximation that goes on when you don't know exactly what is in something, but so far, since my portions have still be very small, I continue to see progress despite any variation in my estimated vs. actual calorie intake.

[swimbikerun 1,039]

Hmmm. It depends on the food. If it is salad or a sandwich I load veggies and don't care. Anything else, I make sure to keep it to once a day. That way I can't eat enough for it to be a problem.

[MemphisWLS 58]

Sooo true Alex. I have a digital scale at home and I measure all my food. That way it's easy for me to have a pretty much good estimate of how much I should be eating when I am not making my own food or weighing at home. For me though I figured out I have to be very careful with the food choices I make and I choose wisely and carefully before I eat now. I wasn't really tracking earlier cos I thot it was unnecessary and honestly I can remember every single thing I have eaten in the last week. But after reading a tread here I followed [mention=255228]outsidematchinside[/mention] suggestion to log using LoseIt, I purchased the premium and pretty much track everything I put in my mouth. I stay within my calorie budget because I pretty much eat the same things everyday. I had a bit of a stall for two weeks, stayed at 216 and almost went crazy. But thank god for keeping track of everything I was eating or we could have missed the pattern. My doctor figured out my muscle milk that I had just started was the culprit. I couldn't understand why with it being only 160 calories but well I stopped it, my stall broke and I lost 3lbs in two days and back on track again. I hope to see more progress when I start exercising regularly. I am working on that so far I am putting in about 2 days a week. I hope to up it to at least 5 days a week soon.

[Airstream88 361]

I measure things like Cereal and milk to make sure I have the Protein count right. I eyeball protein per the Deck of Cards guideline or use the serving info on the package (for shrimp, etc). I buy nuts and popcorn in pre-portioned bags for convenience. My NUT only gives protein and fluid goals so I rarely count calories and never carbs - just eat the servings she recommends. I log my food in a book I got from Amazon but only count my protein and Fluid intake. That's as much obsession about food I can handle in a day.

[sxynana 44]

I use measuring cup for everything but meat. I use a pocket scale to weigh meats. Bought mine at "head shop." They looked at me with doubt when I told them I just needed one to weigh my food. Lol.

[hallit71 11]

I use a scale to weigh things. Measuring cups help too. But the thing I like to use the most is MyFitnessPal app. It's great for pre-packaged Foods, your own recipes, even restaurants. I want to make sure that I'm getting all my nutrients. FitnessPal tracks not only my calories but my Protein, Iron, Calcium, Water intake and my exersice all the good stuff in one place on my phone. Has a wonderful way of showing you your weakness too...like when you eat that high carb item and look back at the list of high carbs for day. There at the top will be your mistake or accountability however you look at it. But like everything else if you don't use the tool religiously or if you fudge your intake you will not have an accurate picture. In the long run its about staying honest with yourself and always making the best choices you can. Like everything else logging the information becomes habit. It's quick and easy with the app.

[tuhok1591 34]

I use a scale to weigh things. Measuring cups help too. But the thing I like to use the most is MyFitnessPal app. It's great for pre-packaged Foods, your own recipes, even restaurants. I want to make sure that I'm getting all my nutrients. FitnessPal tracks not only my calories but my Protein, Iron, Calcium, Water intake and my exersice all the good stuff in one place on my phone. Has a wonderful way of showing you your weakness too...like when you eat that high carb item and look back at the list of high carbs for day. There at the top will be your mistake or accountability however you look at it. But like everything else if you don't use the tool religiously or if you fudge your intake you will not have an accurate picture. In the long run its about staying honest with yourself and always making the best choices you can. Like everything else logging the information becomes habit. It's quick and easy with the app.

I am 1 week post op VSG and I want to begin using MFP as my food diary. I am not sure exactly how to add my own recipes or other foods. Is there a tutorial or any advice you would suggest to this newbie?

[hallit71 11]

I just played with it...when you are in the diary and click to add food one of the tabs at the top is recipes. Click that and it pretty much walks you through...you give it a name and I always guess at servings to start...then you add ingredients as I cook...I save it, then I dish up what I made to find just how many servings I got out of that batch. I go back and edit the recipe so I get the best numbers possible...i started putting date I made recipe in the name then I label my servings...i purchased 4 oz canning jars instead of new plates and plastic containers...i can freeze, refrigerate, heat and eat all out of the same container.
I even did recipe for when I made pudding with my Protein Powder so it would be accurate. Each time I change the recipe I just edit. For example I started my "protein pudding" using a premixed Protein Shake for the 2c of milk and also added 2 scoops of my dry Protein powder to really boost the protein while on the full liquid diet. But now I just do dry powder...was easy to change recipe and log the change.

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