Monday 16 February 2015

Breakfast Bowls

The other morning, I glanced at the back of my granola packet, and was stopped short by the image on it.  It showed a bowl heaped high with cereal, and yet I'd just been thinking how quickly I got through the packet, and wondering exactly how much I was eating.  


So, I weighed it, and found I was eating more than twice the recommended "portion".  But it didn't look like I was eating that much…

Getting out my camera and my scales, here's how it goes…  Here's my regular breakfast bowl, with my regular amount of fruit:



And here is the smallest bowl I have in my cupboard, that I rarely use, because it's so small:


You can see their relative sizes:

And here is a "portion" of granola in the small bowl:

This is how much I actually tend to eat, and have done every day while I've lost 8 kilos (seventeen and a half pounds) over the course of 4 months:

So, this is how my actual breakfast looks!  

It's far more than a "portion", but I feel healthy and strong, slim and toned.  I work out every morning, and I'm breastfeeding.  Maybe at some point I will have to change how much I eat, but for the moment I feel kind of angry at the manufacturers.  Firstly, because of their extremely misleading packaging, and secondly because of their ridiculously small "portion" size.

Saturday 14 February 2015

Sweet Reminder

Last week, I had one evening where I ate about 9 dates after dinner, as well as some nuts.  I felt sick afterwards.  The next night, I probably ate about the same total weight of snacks, but it was mainly nuts with just 2 dates.  I felt fine.  A good reminder that sugar is nauseating in excess, even in this very natural form.

I'm using this as a reminder to myself - it's better to eat non-sweet things, even as treats.  Not just in terms of weight, but in terms of how I feel in myself!

It also emphasises for me why I don't want to follow cookbooks like Deliciously Ella.  She's still working on the basis of making yourself sweet treats and finding "substitutes" for unhealthy things.  I don't want to "allow myself" sweet treats if they're going to make me feel ill in the long run, and hide the fact that really I just shouldn't be overdoing the sugar, no matter what the source.  I mean, I just hopped over there, and she's touting a "healthy" version of salted vanilla almond butter cup chocolates!