Can preparing your own meals help you eat less?

 

 Why do sandwiches taste better when someone else makes them? 

QuoteWhen you make your own sandwich, you anticipate its taste as you’re working on it. And when you think of a particular food for a while, you become less hungry for it later. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, for example, found that imagining eating M&Ms makes you eat fewer of them. It’s a kind of specific satiation, just as most people find room for dessert when they couldn’t have another bite of their steak. The sandwich that someone else prepares is not “preconsumed” in the same way. — Daniel Kahneman

From page 38 of the New York Times Magazine, October 2, 2011 issue.

So now I’m thinking about all of those ginormous restaurant meals that we consume. You know the ones — an appetizer that’s a meal in and of itself; followed by plates that would be used as platters in any other setting holding about 4 pounds of food crammed in between your soup, salad, and bread troughs; all topped off with a 1500-calorie, molten-chocolate-covered cake that could fuel a marathoner for a week.

And, okay, maybe you don’t eat that amount of food every time you sit down at a restaurant, but even if you skip the appetizer and the dessert and stick with the main course, the majority of those choices are two to three times what most folks need to consume at one sitting.

But maybe this line of thinking — the idea that precontemplating your food, especially as you are preparing the meal — might be a support to healthier portion sizes. What a radical notion! So, if I make it myself, I’m likely to eat less of it? Cool.

There’s another piece of this that needs an underline — the ability to eat a different food even when we’re stuffed to the eyeballs with something else. So, if I keep it to a single food or foods eaten together (and not in sequence), I might eat less? Cool.

I’m thinking about this even a step further. What if there’s a spectrum of preconsumption? Maybe sitting down to an a-la-carte, all-you-can eat meal of 50 items (think potluck supper or a buffet) is on one end; ordering off a menu is closer to the middle; microwaving some frozen entrees is starting down the other side; and self-preparing a single, complicated dish from scratch is on the other?

Food Scale-o-Meter: Not to Scale

Clicking on this chart will make it bigger.

Well, then while it will still matter what I choose from my options in each scenario, it may be that by being more aware of my propensity to eat more (and why I would) at  the MegaBuffet Smorgasbord will help prevent me from going banana crackers and having a plate of everything offered. It could also help me make better choices about whether to eat something else after I’ve finished a meal at home. (I do love me some ice cream!)

Hmmmmm…

So, what do y’all think? Can preparing your own meals help you eat less? How do we incorporate this idea into life of healthy eating?

Whoa! Two Days in a Row…

RootsBlogging that is.

Don’t panic. I didn’t like go all wild and work out or anything.

I haven’t completely neglected my fitness quest, though. Ye ole fitday account is re-up and running. So, check one item off of the “To Procrastinate” list.

One of my excuses is that I took my kids to meet their new teachers*. I am already in love with both classroom teachers and the support staff promises to be equally amazing. B’s teacher has a sign that says, “A quiet classroom is not an indication of learning.” I’ll buy that!

I always loved going back to school. New pencils and notebooks have always been my thing! And it was always nice to have a fresh start.

I am kinda looking at this re-focus on the MegaChallenge in the same way.

Oh–and in case you are wondering about the weight gain thang, here’s the deal. And I swear on an elliptical trainer that it is the absolute truth.

My scale was off. Seriously. I was in “maintenance” so I would pop onto the scale like once a week or so. If it was under 149, I was cool. Sometime after my sweet boy moved in, the scale developed a crack–so Marchish?–and my theory is that it stopped telling me the truth.

I was traveling all over the place, working about a million hours a week (give or take), under a truckload of stress, and eating out 2 meals a day. So, I knew I was at risk for some gainage, but I didn’t really have time to think about it much. After a while I broke down and bought another scale–and that is when I discovered the deception. If it had been a couple of pounds different, I would have chalked it up to calibration or something. But 10 pounds was a rude awakening. Gah!

So, my little scale-enhanced denial party is over. I am heavier than I want to be. Not a huge amount, but more than I would drop without some focused effort.

The good news is that I know I can get back on track and that I didn’t let it get way out of hand.

Now, to get the shoes laced up and downstairs to the bike.

Soon.

*Can you believe that school is starting already?? Wasn’t there supposed to be some correlation between back-to-school and fall? Thought so!

Oh yeah! It is a fitness blog…

Don’t think that just because I haven’t been working out consistently and tracking every morsel of food via fitday that I am not on top of that portion of my life. I am closing in on 9 months (count ’em) at goal weight. I know it drove Allan (where the hell is he?? Oh wait! He’s back!) nuts that I managed to lose weight with what amounted to wishful thinking, caloric awareness (not restriction), and a handful of trips to the gym.

Call me tenacious (or, like the wasband, evil incarnate) but once I get my head wrapped around an idea I don’t let go easily. ‘Sprobably why I was married for so long. The thing is that it takes me a really long time to get my head wrapped around anything. I think and I research and I plot and I fret and then — it would appear — all of the sudden I leap into action and head full steam toward my new goal. From the outside it must resemble a snail suddenly taking off like a rocket.

I am back in pre-contemplation about re-starting my downward trend in weight. I would still like to get below 140 as there are a few lumpy spots that I would like to eliminate. Dressed no one is the wiser, but I know it is there. That 11 pound lifetime gain thing is in my head, too. I weighed 129 in college (the first time through) and getting under 140 would put me in that 11 pound gain range.

My struggle? Finding time to do the gym thang with my kids. They do not do well in the childcare at my gym… I am sure there is an early post about it. Suffice it to say, that I worked up more of a sweat running back and forth between the nursery and the bathroom than I ever did on the elliptical machines. Perhaps it is time to revisit that option, though. They are a year older… hmmmmm.

In the meantime, I am working up one stinky sweat cleaning out the garage. Of course, I picked the hottest stretch of one of the hottest summers to go at it. But when I make up my mind to do something…

Move The Car…

Yeah, I have hit 151 pounds. Which means that I only have 2 pounds to go to reach goal. The fact that I am losing anyting at all is due to my continued awareness and restriction of my food intake and has nothing to do with fitness. I am about to change that, though. Yes. Believe it. I am off to the gym (75/200). But first let’s move the car.

Crickets…

Judging from the overwhelming number of comments, the details of my life outside of shedding pounds and running to nowhere are of little interest to the folks who frequent the MegaChallenge. There would have been a time I would have chosen one of two courses: stopped talking about my life or to have taken it personally and moped for a week.

Well, this isn’t that time.

I really have nothing to report in the fitness quest. I have maintained a 152.5 lb weight for two weeks. Not exactly stellar if you are trying to weigh less than that – but not a bad effort when you are close to maintenance.

In divorce news, I meet with my attorney tomorrow afternoon. In some ways it can’t come quickly enough. In others, it feels like it is all blazing by faster than I can process it all.

Still Here…

But in a disjointed, out-of-body sort of way. Lots going on emotionally that I just can’t put into words.

Nothing much going on in the health and fitness department – though I did walk a couple of times this week (70 and 71/200). Fall weather is my favorite – so I will probably do more walking than gymming until it turns cold.

Someone wrote that getting a divorce was like ripping your veins out. I have never done the latter – but I would tend to agree. Of course, there is a part of me that is looking forward to life without my wasband. Right now that life seems really far away.

I am really craving a sleeve of Ore0s. Of course, I am using all my powers of resistance to avoid any such purchase – but don’t think that the thought hasn’t plagued me quite a bit. I don’t want to lose track of my goal: a healthy, happy Gina. Ore0s aren’t in that picture. Really. Not even one sleeve.

Creme Brulée… well, that’s a completely different discussion.

Fits and Starts…

All in all, I would have to say that the MegaChallenge is going very well. Sure, I have slacked some in my intensity and progress, but from what I gather that is typical. We all start out like gangbusters. It is the long-haul, day-after-day, month-after-month follow through that tends to get hard. So, the fact that I am still plugging along after 4 months of this fitness quest gives me great hope.

That… and the loss of another half pound. I am never this upbeat when I have stalled out! That puts me at 158 pounds – or 30 pounds gone since the start of the MegaChallenge. So, let’s move the car and pretend that no one notices that I haven’t worked out since Thursday. Okay? K.

Oh, and beefore I forget, check out Renee’s new site, Fatfighters. You won’t bee disappointed. 😉

It’s Off to Work I Go…

I am travelling for the next several days, so no news will be – well – no news. Before I go, I do want to catch y’all up on the latest MegaChallenge stats. I made it to the gym for workout 56/200 today and met 161.5 on the scale for the first time in a long time. Let’s move the car, please.

Okay, now that that’s done, my goal for the trip is to maintain my weight. I won’t have a lot of choice about when and what I eat – only how much of it – so, keeping tabs on calories will be a little more difficult. I do plan to locate the fitness room at the hotel and become acquainted with some form of stationary motion. Maintaining my weight on a business trip will be a huge victory for me. Historically, I have taken baggier clothes to wear toward the end of long trips. Not this time.

Wish me luck!

Today’s Car Progress…

I am still sitting in front of the TV, but I ran over here to update y’all on the fitness thang. I did go the gym yesterday (They have cable on the TVs in front of the elliptical trainers, so I was able to keep my eye on the news networks.) and completed workout 54/200.

I’ll be seeing my friends who got me into this whole MegaChallenge deal next weekend. It is the first time they will see me since the beginning of the summer. I am pretty excited that I am going back short some 25.5 pounds. (Here’s the car, son!)

When I started this it really was about the workouts – and I knew that workouts would cause me to lose some weight. But getting the eating in line made a bigger difference than I anticipated. (Here’s where you say, “Eureka! She gets it!”) I was counting on losing about a pound a week, so doing double that really makes the overall effect seem radical. I was squeezing into baggy size 16s in June, and I am struggling to keep my body-hugging 12s on, now.

Part of my motivation for keeping track of my eating was Renee’s Beaker Babe Challenge. It pulled me off of my 173.5 plateau and I lost 11 pounds over the course of that 6-week period.
Anyone up for another challenge now that the Beaker Babe challenge is officially over?? Huh, huh, please??

It seems inconceivable that in 3 months I could be so close to my goal weight. The nice part of where I am is that I feel fine at the weight I am, now. I am happy with the way clothes fit. I have tons more energy. I can only imagine how I will feel in another 13.5 pounds.

Why We Keep Track…

On this fitness adventure we like to mark progress and milestones. By we, I mean I. Anyway, I am very resistant to writing everything down for fear of turning into my IronMan brother-in-law who is famous for his shoe mileage charts. However, every once in a while, I manage to jot something down that turns out to be very inspiring. Case in point: when I got home from my first elliptical run to nowhere, I wrote this on my calendar:

Elliptical Trainer: 7 min. 700 Strides.

That is 7 minutes at 100 strides per minute. That statistic is meaningless unless you compare it to my last workout. I didn’t write it down, so this is an estimate, but it is fairly accurate.

Elliptical Trainer: 57 min. 7000 Strides.

That’s almost an hour at 122 strides per minute – and keep in mind that I was hurting the entire time. I can recall hitting nearly 9000 strides in previous weeks. That’s an hour at 150 strides per minute. Just over two months ago it was all I could do to move for 7 minutes at a walk. Now, some 40 trips to the gym later, I literally run for an hour straight and then go on to do weights and have energy left over to function for the rest of the day.

Our bodies are amazing.

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