How much surface area?

About two years ago, I bought new plates. Which was one of the best things I ever did. I did it because I looked at two pieces of ceramic and was scared at what I saw. I was getting a holiday meal together and dug out some of the nicer pieces of china that I don't use regularly. As I set the table something became clear.

The dishes I had bought at a local department store were the same size as an antique serving platter.

Read that sentence again, it should scare you.

A few weeks later I went to a restaurant supply store and bought some salad plates. Those have been my dinner plates ever since. Why did I have to do that? Because it is now the norm in America to eat on plates that are more than a foot across.

The giant plates I had, measured in at 14 inches across. And I remembered when I bought them, they were not the largest ones on display, they were the average. So at one time, a 14 in plate was used for serving the roast for the entire family. Now, it is used to hold one person's meal. That should make you shake your head at the very least.

In my life time, we have gone from average dinner plate size of 8 in. to an average of 12 ins. Four more inches in diameter, more surface area to fill with food. And because we were told not to waste our food. We eat it all.

Look at this diagram below:

http://www.houseplanshelper.com/dining-table-size.html

This is the minimum place setting for serving people in a restaurant or banquet. Those average plates I had bought, would have taken up almost all of the serving area.

As for the salad plates, those work out great. They are 8 in across and I have never had a problem with food spillage.

I didn't see a dramatic weight lost from just switching my plates. But I did notice less food being wasted.

Other people have noticed as well. This paper gives a nice overview on why it's a problem. Cornell has researched it.  If you are having a hard time visualizing it, the picture below is one of the best ones I found to represent the problem.

Source: Multiple places on the net.

Do I recommend switching plate sizes? Yes. Will they help you loose weight? Maybe. But at least you are taking out one thing that will trick you into eating too much.

We want it BIG, and then we wonder why we are FAT

How's my diet going?

Not too well right now, Halloween was a killer. I bought 9 lbs of candy. First time, in a new town on a main street, I had no idea how much to get.  I got 4 trick or treat groups. That's it. Which means I have a lot a candy still around. Temptation has been given in. I have some everyday. On the positive, if this had happened last year. It would have been eaten in one night, by me and and my husband. So yay! No pigging out! But still want my candy.

Sweet, Sweet, sweet, temptation

This is not what this post is about. This post is about how big is too big.

This was brought home to me this weekend. The apartment which we rent has a fridge that is almost as old as I am. Worked good up to a week ago, then stopped defrosting. It's going to take a bit between the repair people and my landlord to decide to keep it or toss it. Meanwhile, we need a place to store our food.

With four people in the house, that fridge had a lot of wasted space. Now it is just my husband and me, the space is even more wasted. The fridge we have is a glorious 14 cu. ft. Which is actually on the small size for the average American refrigerator, at least according to the Atlantic.  According to Gawker its 22 cu. ft. As I looked at the labels on the fridge to figure out the make and model. It actually breaks down to roughly 11 cu. ft refrigerator; 3 cu. ft freezer.

The way we buy food; it should be the other way around. But I will get back to that.

As I looked around for a back up fridge, I had to look at compacts, due to money. During the search, I went to work and realized something. We have a larger compact fridge in the break room. The entire thing could fit into the one sitting in my kitchen (which is on the small size for the norm in America).  Yet, that fridge is fine for a place that can have up to a 100 people working during a shift. Granted it gets a little cramped. But I have never not found room for my lunch.

So we settled on getting a 3.3 cu ft refrigerator. I took out all the food and cleaned out our larger fridge. The actual food that we had to eat, (after throwing out the stuff that should have thrown out and stuff we can't eat any more) could fit into a plastic dishpan. Size of the dishpan; 15 qts or 1.6 cu. ft.

My husband and I make smaller trips to the grocery store during the week. Easier to do so when you have to take the bus or ride a bike to get the groceries. We no longer have to buy a gallon of milk when a quart will do. So why do we need such a large fridge? And why did we need it with more people in the house? Even with four people there was a lot of wasted space.

Granted, we are not buying food like the average American which buys it once a week or month, so the storage is needed. But if we did, the freezer is more what I would need.  I would have that filled with cuts of meat, frozen vegetables, and the makings of my veggie broth. I have a 4 cu ft. freezer on my list of things to buy, eventually.

This really got me thinking. Do we need 30 cu. ft. refrigerators?  I know large families that had no problem keeping their food for 7 or more people in a fridge the size we have in the apartment. Yet, smaller sized families in America want larger fridges.

But I still need a place to put my take out...

This isn't just a gluttony issue: How much food do we throw out that we never use in the first place? If you are not a big food buyer, how much energy are you wasting by having a large fridge?  How big is too big?

With our big refrigerators and huge dishes (another post coming up), isn't any wonder why people that eat a western diet, tend to have issues with portion control.

My compact fridge should be here today. If it is exactly what we need, I won't be pressing my landlord for a new larger one.

There are times, its okay to take a break.

I haven't posted in a while. I am still doing the LCHF. But today I want to talk about when there are times you can't follow your diet.

One of those days happened yesterday.

When you are in an emeotional situation, the last thing you want to think about is what you are eating, if you can eat.

I woke up to a message from my youngest that the college he is going to had recieved a threat of someone wanting to commit a mass shooting. In the morning, he went to class as ususal. I spent the morning doing my chores. At this point, except for his message. It was farily normal.

Then I get a message from him. "It's real, laying low."

Now I am in panic mode and for the next seven hours I could not leave my computer. We would message each other every so often while the college was in lock down and the buildings were searched.

Seven hours later, thankfully nothing had happened.

You can understand the stress my son and the other people on the campus were under. But I was also upset.

I am an emotional eater. When the school went on lockdown. The last thing I wanted to worry about was cooking. My hubby went out and got some food, a pizza, and two thin slices of cheese cake.

Sounds like I jumped off the wagon. Yes I did. But it wasn't like before. The last time I went through a major stress situation. I would have food next to me at all times. Yesterday, I had those pieces of cheesecake, two slices of pizza, and a large salad. That was a major improvement.

The point is, the next day, I went right back to the diet. If you slip up, especially if its a situation you have no control over (such stuck in a place were you have limited choice in what you can eat, ie stuck in an airport in a blizzard). The next day, start over again.

Yes, I could have been in better control. But there were bigger issues on my mind.

SUNY Canton lockdown lifted

What I learned on my cheat day.

I had a cheat day yesterday.

After being good all day, I came home after work. I didn't want to cook. So we decided it's pizza day.
Turned out the pizza choice wasn't too bad. If I had stayed with that, I would have still been under my carbs for the day... Even after eating 4 slices. Because we had chosen a medium, thin crust, extra meat pizza.
What put me over? The ice cream sandwiches.

Observations:

1. Ice cream sandwiches pack a bunch of calories into a little package that does nothing to make you fill full, so I ate too many. And doubled my amount of carbs for the day, almost doubled my calories.
2.  So many carbs that late in the day caused problems.
1. Hubby couldn't get to sleep. He stayed up late, because he felt "wired"
2. I got a really bad bout of insomnia. I know it was food related because I used to get the same type when I would drink alcohol (namely those sinful beer-ritas*) too close to bed time. I will sleep for about four hours, then I am suddenly awake.
3. I woke up, not hungry. When I follow my diet, I wake up a little hungry. I have to eat something solid to start the day. I did not feel like eating when I woke up from that binge. But I know my body. I had to eat a breakfast or experience severe hunger later in the day.

So what did this teach me?

I think if I have another cheat day, I will stay away from the sugary stuff. The pizza was forgivable, but the ice cream made me feel horrible. 

* Those beer-ritas, the ones that come in fruit flavors are possibly the worst thing I have drank due to the effect on my body. There is so much sugar and flavorings in them that it is like drinking a chemical concoction. They taste great and are not too expensive.  But my body can't handle them now, so they are off the menu.

Another Post About Sugar

Watching my carbs is fine. But I started to wonder how much sugar I was actually eating. On the LCHF diet, sugary foods are a no-no, but you can still have berries and vegetables that are sweet.
Like I said before, you can't get away from sugar completely. It is needed in some form or another to help make food (breads, alcohol, etc), and is found naturally in foods we don't think of as having sugar in them, ie onions.

But how much sugar is too much?

Take your time and google (or bing) it and come back with your findings.  Go on I'll wait.


What did you find?

American Heart Association:  At the bottom of the page is this: "...the recommended amount of no more than 100 calories per day for women and no more than 150 calories per day for men"

NHS:  This page talks about two recommendations: It calculated that the burden would be significantly reduced by setting a target limit of less than 3% of total energy intake from sugar. This is much lower than the current figure outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), which says that sugars should be less than 10% of a person’s daily calorie intake.

Institute of Medicine: Added sugars should comprise no more than 25 percent of total calories consumed. Added sugars are those incorporated into foods and beverages during production which usually provide insignificant amounts of vitamins, minerals, or other essential nutrients. Major sources include soft drinks, fruit drinks, pastries, candy, and other sweets.

They all agree we eat too much. But is the problem the total amount of sugar, which includes the sugar naturally found in vegetables and fruits, or just the added sugar?

Personally, I find the WHO recommendations  work out just fine. 10% of your daily calories from sugar, from both sources combined. It gives me enough leeway to treat myself with a berries and cream dessert.  As I have been watching what I have been eating. The LCHF diet has made it easy to stay well with in those guidelines.

Plus: At work (remember I work in a bakery) we have to taste test some of the items, so we can talk to our customers about them. We were testing a chocolate turtle cake. Everyone was raving how moist it was. I took my small bite. The taste of the sugar overpowered the taste of everything else in the cake. It was way too sweet for me. I said so. No one else thought it tasted that sweet.

So for the few weeks I have been on this diet. My taste buds are starting to change. Instead of enjoying the sugary cake. I found it disgusting.

That is a plus in my book.  The more my taste buds get used to how food is supposed to taste. The less likely I will want to eat processed food. If I want to treat myself to a cake. I will make one to what I think is sweet, not what a food company thinks is sweet.

If you think you are eating too much sugar, try one of the recommendations for a few weeks. See what a difference it makes in your palate.

Nice Looking Plate You Got There.

One thing I have noticed that I have started to do, maybe subconsciously at first, is to arrange my food nicely on the plate.

Smorrebrod Notice how nicely this is arranged.

Instead of tossing the burger on the plate, with the broccoli dumped next to it. I will take the time to rearrange my plate so it looks nice to me.

So not only am I thinking about how the food fits into my diet. I am also thinking about how nice it looks.

A good example of this was the day I made some cream spinach. Afterwards I thought, it would have been nice to add some red pepper to this, for some color.

This is helping me lose weight for 2 reasons:

1. I don't want to fill the plate.
I switched to salad plates a few years ago when I realize the dinner plates we were using were the same size as a meat platter I bought. Switching to smaller plates has helped. But you can stack food vertically.
Arranging the food on the plate so there is some plate showing, helps with the portioning. Plus, making it look appealing before I eat, makes me want to slow down when I eat.

2. I'm slowing down, because it looks attractive.
Every been to a restaurant and they bring out your entree, before you smell it, you say "My God, that looks great."?

You might have slowed down your eating to really enjoy the meal. It's almost sacriledge to shovel down a meal that looks as good as it tastes.

There are reasons "drunk foods" look the way they do. I have eaten garbage plates before. You almost want to finish it fast because you are embarrassed in eating something that looks like pig slop. I am not hating on garbage plates, they do taste great. But you have to admit, only a drunk person would think of that.

A Garbage Plate.

I know in the past, I have eaten a meal and NEVER LOOKED AT IT. Think about it. You have to get a fast food meal. You are driving, you are eating while you are driving. Do you ever look at what you are pulling out of the bag?

Or watching a game on TV, and having a pizza in front of you. Do you grab a slice without moving your eyes?

Or eating lunch, while working on something on the computer. Have you ever reached for your lunch and realized, it's gone, you ate it.

Granted, eating and driving, you have to not look at your food. And you shouldn't do that anyway (but we all have). The point is, most of us have gotten into the habit of eating while engaged in something else. And one of the reasons is, a lot of the food we buy or make for ourselves is not good to look at.

Just taking a minute to arrange the items on your plate. Then sitting down and arranging your eating space will help. You might feel like you did when you were in that restaurant. Why spoil this nice looking meal, by shoveling it into my face?

Stop worrying about what you can't have.

The basic food list for the type of LCHF diet I am on is this:
Dairy
Meat
Fish
Eggs
Vegetables growing above ground
Natural fats

In moderation:
Nuts
Berries

Right away, for me, there is a conflict. I am to allergic to most fish. But that is a life long issue and one I have learned to live with.

But take a real close look at that list: Fruits are missing. That's because most fruits are high in sugar.
Grains are missing; wheat, corn, etc. And starchy foods like potatoes and pasta.

Yet, there  is plenty on that list to eat. 

Dairy: with the exception of ice cream (unless you make your own, so you control the amount of sugar),  is a welcome addition to my diet. Like I have said before I have missed my cheeses, butter, whole milk, and full fat yogurt.

Meat: No longer have to stay with lean cuts.  This means no rinsing the hamburger under hot water to get all the fat off, unless you are trying to make it taste like ground sirloin.  If you were getting sick of chicken because it was lean, now you can expand your choices.

Nuts and Berries are still allowed for snacks. So that mean natural nut butters can still grace your table. Celery and peanut butter, anyone?

I find this list far more freeing than concentration on the fact I can't have grains or starches or fruit. I wasn't much of a fruit eater before. Apples and berries were about all I ate.

Grains have been easier to drop. I did have a little issue one day and ate some popcorn. Afterwards, how I felt, I don't think I will be doing that again for a long time.

The days I can't get around not having a sandwich. I switch out the two slices of bread for one crispbread. Not only are they lower in carbs, but have higher fiber (so lower net carbs) and one piece does the work of two pieces of bread. Open face sandwich (based on the Norwegian smørbrød) have become my favorite indulgence food. Yes, it is wheat. That is why I don't have them too often. So far no issues with them.

Your mindset about what foods you should have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, need to change as well. I first experienced that when I tried a vegetarian diet. I had to stop thinking of my meals along the lines of what meat I was serving. Now it is the same thing. I have to figure out how to have my favorites without the starchy side.

Here are some ideas:

Pizza? No crust. Use a thin layer of ground beef baked for the base. Or portabello mushrooms. Or a pizza omelet.

Sandwiches.: Use the deli sliced meat as the wrap. Or if you have to have some grains, the open face crisp bread sandwich.

Chili: If you put corn in, leave it out. Some people would think you were weird for putting it in in the first place.

Pancakes: Go with an omelet. the syrup is off the list anyway.

Potatoes: Turnips, rutabaga, cauliflower, etc. Think about what people ate in Europe before the Columbus exchange happened.  This is one of the easiest things to avoid.

Pasta: Use a vegetable to pour the sauce over. I have used cabbage. Other people have used just about anything, including the favorite; spaghetti squash.

Rice: I haven't found the need to use rice yet. But I have read where people leave it out (especially if it is a side). If I was making stuffed peppers, I might use flax seed instead of the rice. I haven't tried it, but it sounds like a good substitute.

If you are creative, you can get around "having to have" the items that you are not allowed to have now.  Just think of what you can have now.