Artslim
 
Picture
Balancing my energy needs, when dining out.

I used to eat whatever is served when I dine out and while I do believe that where weight loss is concerned ‘it isn’t how much you eat, but when (when hungry) and how much (portion control), that counts’, when the food I eat is not nutrition dense and it is loaded in refined carbohydrates, I tend to overeat . It is very hard to portion control when food is laden with unseen fats you are not aware of.

So when my youngest daughter asked me to buy Create a Meal, which was frozen vegetables in a sauce to make the stir fry dinner, I bought that for the family meal but I also bought, plain frozen vegetables to cook in the microwave for me to eat instead.

Create a meal-contained sugar, salt and full fat coconut milk powder, and the thickener, 1422 xanthan gum. None of which I normally choose to eat and I cannot see the point of adding to my diet when I only want the vegetables and can add my own fresh spices or low sodium condiments, if I wanted to spice the vegetables up.

The family also had white rice as the meal base. Since I have been portion control aware, I have cut my rice servings from a former copious, one and a half cups to a more realistic for my energy needs, half a cup and I try to eat the most energy dense, whole grain rice, not the polished white rice, so I skipped the rice part of the meal.

Therefore, my own selection of the meal consisted of grilled chicken breast and the crisp micro waved vegetables and I ate it with chopsticks while the family, who are all slim and can afford to eat the extra calories, ate their white rice, sauce coated vegetables and the chicken.

The calorie difference would have been 500 calories. There was 800 calories in the adult serves for the cooked for the family meal and my similar but just the nutrition dense food version of the meal, was only 300 and it was very satisfying.

It was not too conspicuous, a thing to do, to arrive before dinner, bringing my own vegetables for the meal. It was not difficult to heat my vegetables on the side in the microwave, (in fact Reg did this for me while I was blogging J ),  I took my chicken before it was mixed into the sauce mixture and I really enjoyed my dinner, and knowing I was sticking within my energy needs, for the day and not exceeding them.

My youngest daughter is a naturally active person, she walks and rides a bike, works hard, and even takes time to exercise on top if this by using her Wii fit plus. She encourages, healthy activity in her family, her and her husband walk the dog for an hour when he comes home from work most nights and her meals are mostly nutritious.

 I am not as active all day, as she is, so I have a lower energy requirement.  Blogging does not burn up the energy in half a bowl of rice, easily. J.  I felt really pleased, when I woke this morning, knowing I have tidied up this one last, slack eating area in my life, finding a good way to get around, eating out at other people’s homes and not overeating, over consuming energy, in the process.

Here is the convenient one serve size pack of mixed frozen vegetables that I found convenient to bring to the meal, for myself, photographed, on the sink beside the Kohler faucets.

 
Picture
 


Comments


Comments are closed.