About the Scales - POSTED ON: Dec 04, 2017
Should I weigh? If so, how often?
Should I throw my scales away?
This issue is frequently discussed by those dealing with diet for weight-loss.
After a lifelong battle with food and with weight (see ABOUT ME), I’ve established what works for me. Over the years, I have just about every reaction possible to the Scales.
Over time, I tried different variations to my use of the scales. I tried weighing whenever I felt like it, even if it was many times a day. I tried weighing once a day, and once a week, and once a month; twice a day, not weighing myself, but having a club or doctor weigh me. I spent several years not weighing at all. I've bought many scales of various kinds, and I've thrown away many scales.
I finally came to realize that my problem is not with...
Eat Small to BE Small - POSTED ON: Nov 30, 2017
You have to eat small to be small. If you eat large, you will be large. When reducing your meal-size, it is Important to stick to your normal number of meals. If you just start eating smaller meals more frequently, you're not necessarily eating less food overall, you’re just reducing the amount you eat at each sitting.
A normal undistended stomach is about the size of your fist. This is really helpful in visualizing how much food to eat. An average-size fist is about 1 cup. A bigger person usually has a bigger hand. A smaller person’s hand is usually smaller.
Your own hand is a personalized (and portable) measuring device for your food intake, and can be helpful in estimating portion size.
Taking in small meals to lose weight is not a foreign concept. It’s been around for decades. Your body will show positive weight results if you: ▪ Eat at mealtimes only; and ▪ Eat no more than three meals daily, and ▪ Visualize your fist over your plate at every meal, and ▪ Make certain your entire meal’s food portion is NOT larger than your fist. The digestive system is only able to digest a certain amount of food before it has to start storing the food for later. Think of your stomach like a muscle. When it's filled with large meals three times a day, the distensibility (the scientific term for the amount your stomach walls can stretch) increases — just like your biceps would get bigger if you were working them out three times a day, And when you head in the other direction — eating only small meals of a similar volume — your stomach's capacity drops. After adapting to eating small meals with no food in-between you'll naturally feel full with less food, and your body will send signals to stop eating sooner. So, if you regularly eat large meals, your stomach's distensibility (or ability to become stretched) will increase to accommodate the food. If you instead eat only small amounts at a time, your stomach's distensibility will decrease. Remember, however, that without some type of bariatric surgery, one’s stomach reduction or expansion is only a Temporary measure. The stomach will stay adapted to eating small meals only as long as one CONSISTENTLY eats only a small amount of food, of about the same smal...
Palm of the Hand - POSTED ON: Nov 29, 2017
The size of an adult woman’s palm is equal to somewhere between one-fourth and one-half cup depending on her basic frame size. Bariatric surgeon, Dr. Duc Vuong, says that his patients should always serve themselves only a very small portion of food, and that the entire amount of the food on their plate for their meal should be no larger than the palm of their hand. He makes an exception for salads consisting of ONLY green leafy vegetables, and says for a meal that consists of only raw leafy vegetables, the portion can be as large as the entire hand. This recommendation is based on the fact that during the first 6 months or so after a person has Weight Loss Surgery, the stomach pouch will only stretch to about the size of the palm of the hand. Dr. V talks about this in his Facebook videos. He calls the rule, 2x2x1. The circumference of this food volume is the length of 4 fingers across the palm of the hand, and the height of the food volume is 1 finger. In his videos he demonstrates the concept of 2x2, by placing two fingers on one-half his palm, then two fingers on the other one-half of his palm. Essentially, a “sleeve” gastric surgery results in a rectangular thin pouch (2x2), while a “RNY” gastric surgery results in about the same size square (2x2).
For a long time I’ve been working to eat very small food portions, and now I’m experimenting to see if I can tolerate eating meals that are only as large as the palm of my hand. This morning I found that two Splenda packages exactly fit the palm of my hand. So I took some photos of the packages, my hand, my plate and my breakfast.
Below is a photo of that process.
I learned that a portion of food the size of the palm of my hand is even smaller than I previously believed. Here's how a meal the size of my palm should look on my different size plates.
Shooting the Messenger Does Not Solve the Problem. - POSTED ON: Nov 12, 2017
The Scale is not your enemy.
Consistently tracking food and weight requires a great deal of effort, patience, discipline, and can frequently feel emotionally painful and frustrating. A lack of awareness and general ignorance of the ongoing amounts of our caloric intake, and of our resulting scale weight can sometimes bring temporary “peace of mind and self-acceptance”. Many of us would like to be able to believe the commonly held Fantasy that a person (even if severely obese, or reduced-obese) can trust the urges and needs of their body to guide them in their eating choices. The problem with this Myth is that the body will guide us where it wants to go. There is clear and convincing evidence, from scientific research, and from experiential dieting results, that an obese body wants to stay fat, and a reduced-obese body wants all of its lost fat returned as soon as possible. Successful weight-loss or maintenance of weight-loss generally takes an ongoing Awareness of one’s eating Behaviors and the Results of those eating Behaviors. It requires consistently following SOME METHOD of conscious eating Behavior that restricts calories to an amount which is the same-or-less as the amount used by that individual body. ....Together with a consistent and precise METHOD of measuring the ongoing weight Results of that eating Behavior. How do you figure out how much you weigh? Be careful not to fall into the trap of weighing yourself weekly, because it’s just not enough data for you to know what’s really happening. Weigh yourself every morning, but ignore the number that comes up on the scales. Instead take the average of the last seven days (preferably ten or fourteen), and after several weeks look at how that average is changing over time. That’s where the real truth lies.
Daily Self-Weighing to Control Body Weight in Adults: A Critical Review of the Literature Carly R. Pacanowski, Fredrik C. Bertz, and David A. Levitsky
"Published data appears to strongly suggest that people who weigh themselves frequently lose more weight and can maintain their reduced weight longer than people who do not weigh themselves frequently." "Although we must be vigilant of possible negative side effects of frequent self-weighing on restrained eaters and people who might be vulnerable to eating disorders, the data, so far, does not present a cogent argument for daily se...
Tiny Dishes for Petite Meals - POSTED ON: Oct 24, 2017
I am a small, elderly, sedentary, reduced-obese female, who after a large weight-loss has now maintained my body at or near a “normal” BMI for more than 12 consecutive years. Eating Small to BE Small is the method by which this is being accomplished.
Every day I work continually to restrict my food to very small portions; weigh and measure my food; and record it all … every day… into a computer journal which provides me with a calorie count along with other nutritional values. I’ve written many articles about my personal application of this method, and many of them are located in the DietHobby section BLOG CATEGORIES… Status Updates. When working to eat small, I find it helpful to use tiny dishes, and even tiny flatware. Using a tiny plate instead of a regular size plate makes a big difference in the amount of personal eating satisfaction that I receive at mealtimes. Here is a photo of a stack of my plates. From Bottom to top: Regular size Dinner plate; Salad plate; 6 ½ inch saucer; 4 inch dessert plate. The photo BELOW shows that these two 4 inch round sauce or dessert plates are about the same size as the palm of my hand.
I work to eat slowly in order to eat small, and using baby-size flatware slows me down, because a baby fork, or baby spoon holds a lot less food than regular-size utensils.
Here are some comparison photos of regular-size and baby-size flatware when placed on: a Dinner Plate; a Salad Plate; and a Dessert Plate.
Mar 01, 2021 DietHobby: A Digital Scrapbook. 2000+ Blogs and 500+ Videos in DietHobby reflect my personal experience in weight-loss and maintenance. One-size-doesn't-fit-all, and I address many ways-of-eating whenever they become interesting or applicable to me.
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