One of the things that I struggle with the most is portion control.  I’m not good at eating just one serving of cookies, or chips, or ice cream.  Nor am I good at eating one serving of chicken, or spinach, or blueberries.

Whenever I find little gems that help me win these tiny battles with portion control, I like to write about them so that they’ll stay fresh in my mind for a bit.  Here are some recent tips that I’ve found and would like to incorporate in to my eating habits.

Learn from your Diet mistakes–Learning to eat healthy is a journey.  Many of us have spent a life time acquiring bad habits, we can’t expect them to be erased over night.  Try and focus on the victories while still being mindful (and learning from ) of the defeats.  Eventually, the victories will start to outnumber the defeats and it will get easier to maintain healthy habits.  Until then, fight hard and DON’T give up!

Don’t use visual clues when eating–Many of us stop eating when the container is empty.  We eat until the bag of chips is gone, or until our plate is clean.  We eat with our eyes instead of our stomachs.  We eat until our pants feel uncomfortable and THEN we stop.  How can we stop doing these things and start paying attention to when our stomach tells us we’re full?  There are lots of ways:

• Use smaller plates
• Eat while sitting
• Concentrate on eating when you’re eating–don’t multitask!
• Eat slowly
• Taste your food and enjoy it

All of these little tricks will help you become a healthier eater.

Make your own Portion Control Bags–If you know how much you’re supposed to eat, but have a hard time not  reaching into that bag of chips or box of crackers buy snacks that are already packaged into 1-portion increments.  This may cost more money and be less environmental, but if it’s the only way that it gets you to control your eating, it may be worth it.  You could also make, reuse, and recycle your own single portion servings of your favorite snacks with ziploc bags.

If none of these tricks work for you, then do what I need to start doing–buy carrots, not cookies!  Do you have any tricks to help you maintain your proper portion size?

I try to limit meals out, but especially since I’ve started working from home, it’s difficult. Now a cheap lunch at the local Chinese or Mexican place has become a way for me to actually see people.

When I’m focused, I’m able to make sensible food purchases. For example, there’s a little Mexican place a couple miles away that serves $2 tacos. For two bucks, you get two small corn tortillas topped with meat and veggies.

I’ve always assumed these tacos were relatively low calories, and so have purchased three orders at a time. (For a total of six tortillas and three mounds of meat.) But are they really low calorie?

Yesterday, I re-started the Body for Life program. As part of that, participants are encouraged to eat six small meals a day, consuming one portion of protein and one portion of carbohydrate at each meal. (A portion is between the size of your palm and the size of your closed fist, which seems rather vague.)

Yesterday, I also craved tacos. “Hm,” I thought. “Tortillas are carbohydrates. Meat is a protein. Maybe these are okay on the Body for Life mealplan.” I made a quick trip to the Mexican place to find out. I ordered my food to go, brought it home, and then dissected it.

Turns out each 12-centimeter (4-1/2 inches) tortilla weighs about 20 grams (3/4 of an ounce). Because there are two per taco, that’s 40 grams of carbohydrates. But how many calories are in those 40 grams? I checked our fridge. We had a bag of corn tortillas that contained about 2 calories per gram. This seemed about right.

Each taco also contains about 40 grams of filling, some of which is vegetables, but most of which is meat. An ounce (28g) of lean protein contains 55 calories, which is again about two calories per gram.

As a rough estimate, it seems fair to assume that my tacos each contain about two calories per gram. Since each taco was roughly 80 grams, they each provided about 160 calories.

What does this tell me?

First of all, I can figure out how many calories are in my favorite restaurant foods. That Grandma Jean’s pasta I mentioned last week? If I really want to know how many calories are in it, I could place a to-go order and bring it home. (It’s difficult to account for oils, of course, but I’m mainly after rough approximations.)

Secondly — and most importantly, in this case — I can have these tacos on the Body for Life plan, but I should only be ordering two tacos at a time, not three. A 480-calorie lunch is too high right now, especially if I’m eating six meals a day. Even a 360-calorie lunch might be a bit much, but can be more easily worked into the Body for Life regimen.

Does anyone else ever do geeky stuff like this? Some of the most fun I’ve ever had while dieting has come from being anal-retentive about measuring my portions on a kitchen scale. Strange, but true. I find that knowing the calorie contents of various foods, and knowing portion sizes, helps me to make better choices. (At least when I’m eating mindfully, that is.)

Coffee is very important to me.  I’m not picky about what I drink, how it’s made, or even how it tastes.  But I love a steaming hot cup of coffee in the morning.  So my mother in law did a great job, and she even brought half and half and sugar for us;  like I said, I’m not a coffee purist.

One morning, as I was mixing my coffee, I actually read the label on the half and half.  It read “Fat Free Half and Half!”  How can half and half, which is supposed to be half cream and half milk, be fat free?  I did a little reading and here’s what I came up with.

First I wanted to brush up on my knowledge of the various dairy based creamers:

Whipping Cream–Sometimes we have this laying around the kitchen for various cooking purposes.  When we do, I love to add it to my coffee.  But at 30-36% fat, the calories add up fast and I’m not so sure they’re worth it.

Half and Half–This is the stuff most often used in coffee in the US.  It’s very good in coffee, but obviously not as good as full cream.  At 10-16% fat, it’s a pretty good compromise between total creamy blissfulness and functional coffee drinking

Whole Milk–We always have this stuff in our house because our son is under 2 and still drinks it.  At slightly less than 4% fat, it’s not a very effective creamer, but it’s a lot healthier than any of the above options.

So, what exactly is “fat free” half and half.  Here’s the top 5 on the list of ingredients:

• nonfat milk
• milk
• corn syrup solids
• Artificial color
• Sugar

There was recently a question on Ask Metafilter about this stuff and of all the answers, the one that summed it up best was that it looks like fat free half and half is a mixture of nonfat milk, nondairy coffee creamer, and thickening agents.

While the taste of the stuff is similar to regular half and half, I’m not so sure I want to be adding those extra artificial ingredients to my coffee every morning.  In fact, Pam recently read an article that suggested if you really want to lose weight, you should avoid coffee creamers all together and stick to milk.  Those extra calories really add up over the course of a year.  And since we have whole milk laying around, I think I’ll be switching to that for the little bit of creaminess that I need in my coffee.

This is sometimes difficult for me since it’s well documented that when given a choice, I’ll choose to eat something (OK, anything) other than fruits and vegetables. However, I am getting better at this. In fact, I’m starting to enjoy reaching into the fruit bowl for a snack, or having a nice salad for a dinner.

There are lots of ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into a meal plan. Searching the frozen food section at the grocery store yields a plethora of vegetable options. And it’s certainly easier to open the freezer and pull out a bag of already prepped peas, corn, carrots, or broccoli. But is easier the better option? What about the nutrition of these frozen vegetables? Are they just as healthy as their fresh counterparts? And what about canned veggies?

Fresh
One of the things I love about living in the country is that we have ample room to grow our own vegetables and fruits. We have cherries, peaches, pears, apples, and tons of berries. Lettuce, carrots, peas, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, and asparagus are some of the veggies that we have been known to grow. There’s nothing like going outside and picking what you want to eat for dinner. Straight from the garden to the table is definitely the healthiest way to eat your produce. But just how fresh are those veggies at the megastore? The minute they’re picked, they start to lose nutritional value. How much time has elapsed from field to floor of the store? You never know.

Frozen
In 1998, the FDA confirmed that frozen fruits and vegetable can pack as much, if not more, nutritional value than their fresh counterparts. Since they’re picked, blanched, and frozen within hours of their harvesting, they have little time to lose nutritional value. Also, they’re picked at their peak of freshness–which only enhances their nutritional value.

Canned
Canned veggies and fruits on the other hand have been shown to have the least nutritional value because of the extensive heating during the canning process. This heating can sometimes cause a leaching of the vitamins and minerals out of the food and into the cooking water. Unless you’re drinking that water, you’re not getting as much nutritional benefit from those canned vegetables and fruits.

So, if you want to max out your fruit and vegetable nutrition, grow your own or buy from the local farmer’s market. If you can’t do that, buy frozen. But canned is still better than a box of doughnuts!

This was easy at first. Water is fine for a week or two, and I don’t crave alcohol under normal circumstances. But the last few days of the project were a trial. I began to crave jazzier beverages. I wanted a Diet Pepsi. Or some fruit juice. Or, especially, a glass of wine.

Actually, I only craved wine on two occasions, both of which were social gatherings with friends. Since then, I’ve come to realize that nearly all of my alcohol consumption comes in group settings. I use it as a social lubricant.

The results of my water-only experiment were great. I felt healthier and more alert. I lost weight. As Lazy Man noted recently, drinking water is an excellent weight-loss aid. Water is non-caloric. It’s essential for proper body chemistry. It helps to encourage a feeling of “fullness”. It doesn’t contain sugar or caffeine or man-made chemicals. And when you drink water, you’re making a conscious choice not to drink something else.

Ugly bag of mostly water
I’m ready to try this experiment a second time. During the month of July, I plan to drink only water. Though my fitness has been improving steadily for the past few months, my weight loss has slowed to a crawl. That’s fine, but I’d like to jump-start it a little.

“You get a lot of calories from drinks,” Kris told me the other day, and I realized she was right. By drinking only water, I have an easy way to reduce my calories and resume my weight loss.

I’ll make a couple specific exceptions to my water-only rule, but they’re minor:

• I have three chocolate protein shakes in the fridge that expire mid-month. My frugal nature doesn’t want to see these go to waste. I’m going to drink them. (Or maybe give them to Mac, if he wants them.)
• On my weekend training runs, I may drink forego plain water for sugar water.

These exceptions shouldn’t affect the overall experiment. My primary goal is to purge the caffeine, alcohol, and sugar from my beverages. This is going to be a challenge, but I know I can do it. I’ve done it before!

Image by Bohman.

I think this is fascinating. It’s fun to look at these photos and say, “Yeah, that’s worth the money (and the calories).” Or, “No way!”

For example, bananas are cost- and calorie-effective for me. There’s no way I’m going to eat more than one banana at a time. If I remember right, they average 105 calories each and, according to Health Assist, they cost about 40 cents a piece.

Olives are also a pretty good deal. I love olives, and 300 calories can buy me a lot of them.

I used to eat a lot of potato chips (mainly for the salt). As you can probably guess, they’re not very calorie-efficient.

Potato chips are cheap, however. For the same price as a single banana, I can get 300 calories of food (instead of 105). Water-packed tuna in a can also looks like a relative bargain (in terms of calories):

But gummy bears? Not so much.

It’s a little sad — though perhaps unsurprising — that in general it’s cheaper to get calories from processed foods than from fresh fruits and vegetables.

A few years ago, my brother used Dr. Howard Shapiro’s Picture-Perfect Weight Loss to effectively lose weight. Picture-Perfect Weight Loss uses photos to demonstrate calorie-equivalent portions of various foods. Here’s one of the book’s most famous examples:

Looking at that, even I would choose the fruit. There are several other examples at the book’s web site. The trick, however, is being able to make these sorts of comparisons when there’s nobody there to spell out the differences…