Hi everyone,

I have been reading old maintaince threads for a while now. It seems like successful maintainers have one thing in common: you have learned how to feed your bodies the right type and amount of food.

I think I pretty much figured out what food I can or can not eat. I do not feel restricted with my choices. However, I am still struggling with portion sizes. I found that I can easily overeat protein. Upping fat intake helps somewhat with my appetite, but it does not always work for some mysterious reason.

I am hoping to get some tips from you..

P.S. I am not willing to do calorie counting yet, but if you tell me it is the only way I will do it.

Hi Evenik,

I'm probably not the best one to offer advice but will tell you what we do. First off, I've never counted calories and have no idea how many we consume. I’ve never used programs such as Fit Day. Seems like a lot of unnecessary work to me.

The only little trick we use is to remove the dinner plates from the kitchen. We've only used the smaller salad plates for the last few years. As far as fat goes, we avoid it whenever possible because it's very calorie dense. When fat is required for recipes, we only use olive oil. Fat really doesn't taste very good in my opinion. Also, we find it very difficult to overeat protein and place no limits on what we consume. When shopping for groceries, we always check the calorie counts and choose the brands with the lowest values. Just common sense stuff!

After all is said and done, the most important thing we do is simply avoid carbs and enjoy our veggies.

Best to you.

Bo

I'm very happy to have moved away from Fitdaying everything and just eyeballing my portions. It was scary at first but gradually became easier and easier the more I did it. So actively work on it and you'll get there. It will not happen overnight. What has helped me was being more self-aware and asking myself tons of questions. Am I physically hungry? Am I full? How full am I? How does this food taste? It's at the end of the meal.. how do I feel now? Light? Refreshed? Heavy? Lethargic? Sleepy? I think in the beginning, I wasn't very good and overate, but that's ok. Sometimes when you let yourself loose, you're like a kid in a candy store -- you want to eat everything in sight. But that feeling will go away. I rarely overeat now. Not that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen as frequently as it did say, 2 years ago. Also, when you eat, give yourself plenty of time to eat your food. Take pleasure in it. Don't eat when you're upset,distracted, talking, anxious, watching TV, etc.

Make sure the food you eat is delicious. If not, you will feel deprived and keep wanting more.

Also, give yourself permission to eat however much you want at first. In the beginning I did overeat. Or I thought I could eat 2 lbs of steak (sometimes I still think that way LOL), but of course I could never do it!

You say you overeat protein. Have you tried eating mostly fat first? Then protein? I find that if I eat fat first -- say something with lots of butter or sour cream or the fat on the steak, and then eat the protein, I get full quicker.

At any rate, I'm VERY glad I trust myself to move away from counting everything! I think counting would make me feel deprived, guilty, bingey, like I was still on a diet.

It is great you do not have to use fitday. Every time I tried I felt so deprived. I usually lasted 3-4 weeks and then I would stop logging my food and binged on everything in sight.



I only have plates that are 9-10 inches in diameter. Are they small enough?



Do you mostly consume lean protein? Do you get full faster after eating lean protein or fatty protein?

I have read some similar advice on normaleating.com 3-4 years ago. I still
have the 25 page Word file on my computer. It made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to give it a try. I got scared of uncontrolled eating and slight gain in the first couple weeks and I gave up. However, I think I will try again. It is encouraging to hear that the "kid in the candy store" feeling goes away eventually.



I usually start my meal with protein. I think I should follow your advice and start with fat. Would a salad with lots of olive oil be a good idea? Unfortunately I can not eat dairy, except for ghee (clarified butter).



I feel exactly the same way about fitday and dieting software in general. For me, it usually leads to bingeing. I am not a binge person in general, I overate sometimes before, but not to the point when I was uncomfortably stuffed. I was using fitday and weighing all my food on a kitchen scale for a month, after that month I had the worst binge episode ever and it lasted a long time. That is why I am hesitant to start using fitday again.

Just wanted to stop by and say thanks for your tips guys.
I feel like they helped me to drop below 150 mark.