Hey guys,

I was hoping some of you more seasoned (or even not so seasoned but better at it than I am) bandsters could give me a few pointers about measuring food and food amounts.

During my post op diet phase I was very diligent about measuring all my food, but then it was easy to measure yogurt, pudding, cottage cheese, you get the drift. Now that I am into "regular" eating I have a hard time measuring stuff. I was hoping for some pointers... how do you measure your lunches? dinners? I have no restriction and NEED to start figuring out how to measure food again.

An example of my food in a day:

Breakie - Protein shake (easy to measure)

lunch - half a bun-sandwich (bunwich? lol)

dinner - sushi until "full"

Usually breakie and lunchs have been the same thing for me other variations of dinner would be like an omelet or something. How do you measure that? I'm so confused on how to measure my dinners. I'm having a hard time with these with no restriction and I hate hate hate hate hate cooking.

Please help, I'm getting so discouraged and I don't get my first fill until Mar 10. I gained 4 lbs back in the past week. :biggrin:

Hmm... well I started poking around on the internet and found this which I copied from a Lap-band.com newsletter that may help others.. still will appreciate any info anyone can give though.

I was having a hard time, too, so I went to Target and got a nice digital scale. It has lots of foods built into it's database, just look it up in the booklet that comes with it, punch in the number, and it weighs the item, and tells you on the screen the nutritional information. I also use it to weigh food that's pre measured, because a lot of times the information on the package is either wrong, or the serving size is incorrect. An example of this, I bought a loaf of bread. The nutritional information panel said a serving size is x amount of grams at x amount of calories. I put a slice of bread on the scale, and it was almost twice the weight of what the package said it should be, so I was getting almost twice the calories from one slice of bread than it stated on the package. **note** This was way before restriction.....no bread for me ANYMORE! LOL!

I don't weigh EVERYTHING, but I do try to weigh things the first time I buy something, just to see how close they are to what the package says. I think I've gotten better at eyeballing things since I started weighing stuff, just by seeing it on that little scale.

I have containers and have them marked with 3 ounces on each one so that I know it gets no fuller than that. With your meat and things like that you need to weigh them of course. But honestly remember this is based on weight and not volume, because 3 ounces of popcorn is a huge amount.

I follow this and I take the cups with me, if I go somewhere else to eat other than home. I do not find this to be a problem or a hassel and I still eat with the baby spoons that were provided to me at surgery in the hospital.

I know that smaller bites and chewing well is the secret to the band and NOT overeating. I know that keeping the portions controlled and small is what the band is all about.

Good luck!!

For softer food I use pyrex 6-oz "custard" cupa. I measure my eggs and milk (or eggbeaters) into a cup so I know the portion size before I make my omelet.

For more solid foods, I have 8-oz plastic boxes - mine are bento boxes, but you can use tupperware-type containers, like those from Lock&Lock or Snapware. I don't measure everything, particularly at restaurants, but since I've loaded these boxes with meals for weeks I'm pretty good at visualizing a 1/2-1 cup portion.

When I make sushi at home each roll has 1/3-1/2 cup rice and 1-2 oz filling. Rice doesn't interest me much anymore (who'da thunk it?) so I usually order edamame and sashimi or teriyaki tofu (yum).

Hope that helps -