
By Unknown Author from NYT Travel https://ift.tt/2GF2eRo
from Merah Hati Cintaku https://ift.tt/2GF7rsN
via MerahHatiCintaku.blogspot.com
Are you struggling to lose weight or looking for an easier way to eat healthy without feeling hungry all the time? Portion control is a great method to lose weight and monitor your healthy eating. This post explains what portion control is and offers tons of tips for how to successfully portion control yourself to healthy!
Portion control is one of the biggest nutrition hacks I’ve found for sticking to a healthy lifestyle, losing weight, and then maintaining my ideal weight. The idea is to understand what your body needs and just eat to that level. Oftentimes, either because we feel we have to finish all that’s on our plate or restaurants have pre-determined giant portions, we over-eat, which leads to weight gain.
Enter portion control, which helps us to identify what’s in our food and how much we need to consume to meet our goals. The hang-up for many people when trying lo lose weight, however, is they think they need to drastically reduce the amount of food they’re eating, which isn’t necessarily the case. My goal in this post is to share how to portion control without feeling hungry all the time, and still lose the weight (assuming that’s your goal). The bottom line is that portion control means no food is off limits — it’s just a matter of choice if and when you choose to eat anything.
Hopefully, the info I have shared below will help provide you some much needed support and control over this process. In a nutshell, here are the portion control topics we’re gonna cover in this post:
Feel free to jump to any sections that may be of interest.
So, let’s get started!
In basic terms, your body requires a certain amount of calories to function and survive each day. Those calories are determined by your age, current weight, and daily activity level and vary from person to person. An average woman requires approximately 2000 calories per day to maintain her weight, and 1500 calories per day to lose one pound of weight per week. An average man, on the other hand, requires approximately 2500 calories per day to maintain his weight, and 2000 to lose one pound of weight per week.
That’s where portion control comes in. If you’re eating more calories than your body needs, your body will take those extra calories and store them as fat. The more extra calories you consumer, the more fat you’ll store. So, in order to reduce those extra calories being stored as fat, we can use portion control to make sure we are eating what our body actually needs.
The reason why this is so difficult for many of us to do is we are constantly provided with larger portions than we need. This causes us to eat more without even realizing we’ve over-eaten, causing weight gain.
By portioning out our food and controlling the amounts of food we put into our bodies, we can essentially assume control over how much of our food will be stored as fat. And, if we eat at a calorie deficit, which means we eat less than what our body requires each day to function, we can then make our body use stored fat for energy, which causes weight loss. The more stored fat your body burns, the more weight you lose, up to a point, which is why we want to make sure we maintain a healthy, balanced diet while we utilize portion control.
Don’t worry, this isn’t where I suggest you eat carrot sticks and celery al day to lose weight. In fact, I recommend eating portions that make you feel full and satisfied, all the while understanding the food breakdown of what you’re eating. To help you, I’ve gathered some portion control tips that helped me when I first started.
Learning how to measure food is very important and it will make portion control much easier. So, first, let’s talk about the difference between serving size and portion size.
Serving size is the recommended amount of a specific type of food. This is the recommended amount for a day, not for a meal. The serving size is what you will read on a nutrition label at the top for that product. Serving size, believe it or not, is actually NOT based on dietary needs to any large degree. The “serving size” we see at the top of nutrition labels (for example, 15 crackers, 8 oz., or 2 tbsp, etc.) was determined from the average amount Americans consumed in a single seating, based on federal food surveys between 1978 and 1988! Insane, right? The serving sizes listed on the Nutrition Facts label are NOT recommended serving sizes. By law, those serving sizes must actually be based on how much food people actually consume, and not on what they should eat. That means it is not very useful in understanding how much of that food we should be eating — you must understand that for yourself.
The portion size is the actual amount of food you literally eat in one sitting. That means we need to understand serving sizes of our food and eat what our bodies require using portion control to lose weight and be healthy. It’s also always important to remember your nutritional needs are likely very different than the ones of an average person, especially when you consider serving size wasn’t even based on nutritional requirements.
Factors that can affect your daily caloric intake (and ideal portion size):
The first step in understanding how much food you should be eating to better succeed at portion control is to calculate your macros. What the heck are macros, you ask? Great question! Read on and learn all about them and why they’re so important for understanding portion control.
To start, all food is broken up into:
It’s the combination of the three of these “macros” (short for “macronutrients”) that make up what we call Calories.
First and foremost, let’s get one thing straight. A calorie, by itself, is not the evil thing you might thing it is. It is literally just a scientific way to measure energy. Calories aren’t bad for you by themselves. Your body NEEDS calories for energy. But eating too many calories — and not burning enough of them off through activity — can lead to weight gain. In fact, it takes about 3,500 calories below your calorie needs to lose a pound of body fat. It takes approximately 3,500 calories above your calorie needs to gain a pound.
For the macros:
This is why not all foods are created equal and why some contain more calories than others. It’s also not just about how many calories you eat, it’s about eating quality foods for your caloric intake.
Carbohydrates
Commonly referred to as “carbs,” carbohydrates are in foods like bread, rice, and potatoes and they provide your body with heat and energy. There are three types of carbs:
Overall, the goal is to focus more on fiber and starches and limit sugars, especially those that aren’t naturally occurring.
Protein
All of our organs, including skin, muscles, hair and nails are built from proteins. Additionally, hormones, the immune system, the digestive system, and our blood all rely on proteins to work correctly. Protein is, therefore, an essential part of our diet, vital to our development, and for proper functioning of the body. When we eat, our body breaks down the protein in our food in order to create the amino acids that it needs.
Foods high in protein:
In order for protein to be broken down once we eat it, we NEED fat and carbohydrates to fuel the process. That’s why having a well-balanced diet is so critical — you can’t just eat protein and no fat or carbs — they all work together.
Fat
Fat makes food taste better and makes us feel full longer, but what does it do for our bodies? Believe it or not, fat is also an essential part of our diet and nutrition, meaning we literally cannot live without it. While our bodies require small amounts of “good fat” to function and help prevent disease, a lot of diets contain far more fat than the body needs. Too much fat, especially too much of the wrong type of fat, can cause serious health problems, including obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, all of which can lead to a greater risk of heart disease.
Types of fat:
Understanding what macros are and why we need them is very helpful for approaching portion control — it’s the “why” behind a well-balanced meal, and what that means for our bodies.
So…how do you calculate your macros? While you can calculate it yourself using a formula, I recommend using the IIFYM calculator (IIFYM stands for “If It Fits Your Macros”), which helps you take activity level, goals, and many other factors into account. It is very quick to calculate and will provide you with how many calories you should eat each day, based on your goals, as well as how many grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrates to eat each day to reach your goals, whether that’s to lose, gain, or maintain weight.
Once you have a base-line understanding of what macros your body requires, you can break down the foods you’re eating and control the portions to best fit your macros. It can seem a little overwhelming to start, but it becomes more second nature the more you learn what makes up your food.
One of the reasons we tend to eat too much is because we don’t pay attention to what and how much we’re eating and how fast we’re doing it. Multitasking is not good for portion control, peeps. So try mindful eating. This means: slow down and experience your meal. For instance, did you know it can take your body up to 20 minutes to feel full? So, if you devour your meal within 4 minutes, there’s no way your body will feel full, and you’ll eat more than you need. If we eat too fast, we will over-eat and not feel satisfied from a meal that should actually be totally satisfying.
To learn how to eat slowly, try the following…
Yes, life is busy and hectic, but the more we can practice mindful eating, the better off we will be – food will taste better, we will feel nourished, and we’ll lose weight along the way!
Another great idea for those just getting started learning how to portion control is to keep a food journal. A food journal is a great way to manage food portion sizes and to make sure they follow the portion sizes we’ve determined, based on our individual needs.
So, how do you keep a food journal or diary? You can choose to either keep track using an app or on a notepad. The idea is to track everything you eat, including portion sizes, each day. This will help provide you with a baseline for how much you’re currently eating and to keep track of your goals each day. I prefer the MyFitnessPal app, but there are many, many free and paid options out there.
A word of caution: While I do believe tracking your meals is a fantastic way to create a baseline or starting point, and to reel in what you’re eating to better understand why you may or may not be losing weight, I recommend limiting the amount of time you keep a diary. Over time, you’ll be able to understand portions on your own, which is ideal to avoid becoming obsessed with every single calorie in your diary — trust me, I’ve been there. Once you’ve tracked your food for about a month, you should have a pretty good understanding of what portions you should be eating. The better you can trust yourself with your food choices, the more healthy of a lifestyle it will be. This is also what makes eating clean a fantastic choice because you don’t have so many empty calories of sugar and processed fats.
If you’re worried that eating smaller portions will make you feel hungry all the time, I totally understand. I think everyone’s been on “that diet” where you felt like you were starving from meal to meal, only to finally eat another meal that wasn’t filling enough. This can cause un-needed stress, and is exactly what we want to avoid. So, take it one step at a time. Use this post to find out the ideal macros for you, then start to focus on your food portion sizes. Take note of the portions you’re currently eating — are they way too big? Try reducing them slightly, but do it progressively. If you want to be successful at the portion control, treat it like a marathon, not a sprint, and set yourself up for success.
Here are some more portion control tips to help you feel satisfied (not starving!):
Portion control at restaurants is very tricky, especially nowadays when restaurants serve extra-large portions. It is definitely manageable, though, so don’t worry. I still like to eat out from time to time, but I’m able to keep my portion sizes under control. Here’s how you can do it, too:
These tips will help you to eat smaller portions at restaurants for sure. For more tips, check out my post on how to eat healthy at restaurants.
I think it’s best to remember that portion control is an active choice you make as an investment in your healthy lifestyle and overall wellness journey. Portion control can help you lose weight and also keep weight off, and it’s all part of the process of controlling what foods you’re eating with clean eating. Hopefully, you’ll find how good it feels to be in control of your food (instead of at war) and aware of what, how much, and when you’re eating. Mindful eating and informed choices – this is the power of portion control. And I’m sure you’ll notice the long-term, positive effects along the way!
Now that you’re on board with portion control, I’m betting you could use some helpful recipes to get you started. Here are some of my absolute favorite meal prep recipes because they are well-balanced, delicious, filling, easy, and, of course, allow you to portion control your food!
Plus I have TONS more Meal Prep Ideas on the blog for you to get started!
This post contains affiliate links for products I use often and highly recommend.
The post How To Portion Control For Weight Loss (Without Starving!) appeared first on A Sweet Pea Chef.
This delicious Strawberry Salad with Chia Seed Vinaigrette is packed with fiber and nutrients, and is the perfect way to enjoy fresh strawberries. Plus it’s a great option for salad meal prep and it makes a delicious grab-and-go lunch.
My healthy eating journey has had starts and stops. It has had moments where I wanted to quit and even moments where I did for a little bit.
I’ve had moments where I hate how I look, think, or feel.
It took months of figuring out how to make changes for what my body needed, to learn what balance I could create to be happy and healthy.
I have tried counting calories and restricting as well as clean eating. It took real effort, determination, and strength. And the result has been so worth it!
Once you start making these positive changes, it becomes a little easier, moment by moment. It’s important to, when you make a bad choice, to not beat yourself up. Instead, focus on the positive choices you have made, and the progress — no matter how small. You’ll find positivity goes a long way to rebounding faster!
The best thing about making a strawberry salad is you really don’t need a ton of ingredients to make it vibrant and flavorful – the strawberries help a ton with that. And it’s so easy to make, too! To make this salad, it’s just a few simple steps, like:
If you wanted to make this strawberry salad even simpler, you could always skip toasting the pecans and coconut, but the flavor and added texture when they’re roasted is totally worth the little extra effort – trust me!
Okay so this strawberry salad is FILLED with nutritious, delicious, and clean ingredients, including:
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a very simple recipe for a very flavorful salad. I love finding new ways to incorporate healthy foods into my lifestyle, especially given how good strawberries are for you. Did you know strawberries are…
Oh but that’s not it! This strawberry salad has a DELICIOUS and healthy chia seed vinaigrette, which requires just 4 ingredients, including:
See? All clean, healthy, and nutritious ingredients. Compare this to your normal poppyseed vinaigrette, which typically contains vegetable oil, white sugar, and poppy seeds, which is high in sugar and unhealthy fats. Plus — this vinaigrette recipe tastes just as good, if not better, than a poppy seed vinaigrette.
Winner: THIS chia seed vinaigrette.
Okay, so you’re on board with making yourself this delish strawberry salad, and you’re wondering if it will work for meal prep. The answer is YES, it’s great as a grab and go salad to enjoy during the week, but I do have some suggestions on how to package and prep your salad for best results.
Storing your salad this way will help keep it as fresh as possible during the week. Then, when it’s time to eat your salad, just pour the salad out from the jar into a large bowl, drizzle with the dressing, and then toss to coat. Bing. Bang. Boom. Stored like this, these salads will last up to 4-5 days in the fridge. Tasty meal prepped strawberry salad for the win!
PS Check out my post for more info on how to meal prep mason jar salads!
While this is a super easy salad to make, I wanted to share a few tips for how to avoid any potential issues and also to find ways to suit your healthy lifestyle.
SinceI know no lifestyle or dietary requirements is quite the same, here are some recipe substitution recommendations for how to make this salad work best for you:
As always, though, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below and I’ll be happy to help!
This delicious Strawberry Fields Salad with Chia Seed Vinaigrette is packed with fiber and nutrients, and is the perfect way to enjoy fresh strawberries. Plus it's a great option for salad meal prep and it makes a delicious grab-and-go lunch.
To toast the oats, preheat your oven to 300 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper and add the oats. Place in the oven and toast, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until they are golden brown. Set aside and allow to cool.
To toast the pecans, increase the heat in your oven to 325 degrees F. Place the roughly chopped raw pecans on a baking sheet lined with tin foil or parchment paper and toast them just until they become aromatic, about 8-10 minutes. You have to watch them carefully as they are easily burned. Remove from oven and allow to cool, then chop into small pieces.
If you’re prepping this salad ahead, make sure to keep the dressing in a separate container and then toss right when you’re ready to enjoy.
See the post for ingredient substitution recommendations.
This post contains affiliate links for products I highly recommend.
The post Strawberry Salad with Chia Seed Vinaigrette appeared first on A Sweet Pea Chef.
I’ve been meaning to share this epic mai tai recipe with you for months! I found the recipe in my friend Alana Kysar’s beautiful new cookbook, Aloha Kitchen (affiliate link). Alana is effusive and thoughtful, hard working and talented, and you would know this all by glancing at her book. She sent me a copy and I’ve learned so much about Hawaiian culture and cuisine from it.
Her mai tai recipe is in the drink section at the back of the book. I’ve been wanting to learn how to make a proper tiki drink ever since we got a tiki bar in town, so here we are.
Alana says, “The mai tai is commonly associated with Hawaii, despite is California origin. Whether you believe Don the Beachcomber or Trader Vic invented the drink, its strong tie to the islands remains. If you’ve ordered them in the past, chances are you’ve had varied experiences, ranging from great to terrible and everything in between.”
This mai tai recipe is well balanced, deliciously tropical, and quite boozy, like a mai tai should be. Your average cocktail contains one-and-a-half ounces of liquor, and this one contains three ounces of rum. You have been warned.
The post Mai Tai Cocktails appeared first on Cookie and Kate.
Have you ever made your own almond milk at home and wondered what to do with the leftover pulp?! This recipe is for you!
Let us show you how easy it is to make these 7-ingredient, 20-minute bliss bites, made entirely in the food processor!
This recipe starts with leftover almond pulp from making homemade almond milk.
7-Ingredient Brownie Bliss Balls (Made from Almond Pulp!) from Minimalist Baker →
Making your own homemade tomato sauce is actually really easy and is a great way to control the flavor and quality of the food you’re eating. This homemade Roasted Tomato Sauce just tastes so much better than the store-bought stuff and freezes great!
Let’s see how many of your favorite dishes call for tomato sauce…
Lasagna? Check. Pizza? Check. Spaghetti? Of course. Chicken Parmesan? Yaas. Any Italian dish ever? Yep, that too.
When fresh tomatoes are ripe and delicious and bountiful, it’s a great time to make your own homemade roasted tomato sauce and freeze it so you’ll have it when it’s actually cold outside and you want to bake lasagna in the oven.
Every summer, when the markets are full of ripe tomatoes bursting with flavor, I buy a lot of tomatoes and make a lot of tomato sauce. Like, really a lot.
Instead of forcing Dustin to eat one tomato dish after another the entire summer, I oven roast them and make my own Roasted Tomato Sauce. If it sounds fancy, don’t be worried – it’s so incredibly easy and simple. It’s the perfect way to preserve tomatoes and (bonus) it freezes exceptionally well. That way, you know you’ll never have to reach out for the store-bought tomato sauce again.
I like using Roma tomatoes for this tomato sauce recipe because they don’t have a lot of seeds and are very flavorful, though many other types of tomatoes work great for marinara sauce. Here are some great options for what tomatoes to use in your sauce:
In general, you can look for what’s called a “paste” tomato, which, like the Roma and San Marzano tomatoes, are meatier, have fewer seeds, are firmed, and have less water content, making them flavorful and rich for making sauce.
If you want to get more flavor from your tomatoes, roasting them is the way to go! Yes, it’s a slow process, but luckily not a very painful one. Roasting tomatoes (and, well anything, for that matter) intensifies the tomato flavor and brings out a richness you just don’t get from cooking them on the stove.
That being said, if you didn’t want to roast your tomatoes (or need to speed up the process), you could always cook this sauce on the stove.
Roasted tomato sauce is a great base for so many amazing recipes, like:
It’s so versatile! When making Roasted Tomato Sauce, I tend to get a bit carried away and make a lot of it, all at once. Dustin claims no one in their right mind could use up all that tomato sauce. Little does he know how many recipes call for this Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce! Homemade tomato sauce just tastes so much better than the store-bought stuff and is also much healthier.
To store homemade tomato sauce, just add it to a tightly sealed mason jar (like these mason jars) or a re-usable storage bag (like these bags). Properly stored in an air-tight container like a mason jar or sealable bag, homemade tomato sauce can be stored in the fridge for up to 7 days. If you don’t get to using it within that timeframe, the good news is that this sauce freezes very well.
Believe it or not, you can also freeze homemade tomato sauce for up to 6 months.
Here are some tips for how to freeze tomato sauce:
It is totally normal when you make homemade tomato sauce for it to be a little more orange than red because, when you blend it, you introduce air into the sauce, which turns it from red to orange. Rest assure, it doesn’t alter the flavor, just the color. If it really bugs you, you could use try one of the following:
Personally, I think that’s kinda the beauty of homemade sauce is that the color varies. It tastes the same – even though the color is a little orange.
Making your own homemade tomato sauce is actually really easy and is a great way to control the flavor and quality of the food you’re eating. This homemade Roasted Tomato Sauce just tastes so much better than the store-bought stuff and freezes great!
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or you can use a large casserole dish.
Lay out the tomato halves (skin-side up), onion, garlic and carrot and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Try to make this only one layer to allow for maximum roasting. Drizzle olive oil all over.
Bake for 60 – 75 minutes, or until the edges of the tomatoes and onions begin to pull away from the tomato flesh.
Allow to cool and then remove the peels using your hands.
Carefully transfer the roasted contents to a food processor or blender (or a large mixing bowl, if using a stick blender), add the basil leaves and tomato paste, and pulse until smooth.
Add additional salt and/or pepper, to taste.
Can be frozen up to 6 months.
This post contains affiliate links for products I use regularly and highly recommend.
The post How to Make Roasted Tomato Sauce appeared first on A Sweet Pea Chef.