Week 3, Part 3: Limit Portions Update! Superchewing is the Answer!
Hello! I’m back on track from my vacation mishaps. Hydration system is back on line, fiber/sweets/salt intake is once again balanced, and finally, food portions are scaling back! Right now portions are large enough to fill me up, but small enough to avoid that uncomfortable fullness.
In addition to all of the tips I posted earlier for limiting portions, I’ll add superchewing--a word I’m using to mean excessively chewing your food to the point of no return. What that really means is chew until foodstuff have graduated from mushy to straightup liquid. Now it’s much easier to do this with some foods (water rich foods for the win!), but regardless of the food, chewing to liquid stage takes a bit of patience and intentional chewing. After a few days of superchewing, I’ve decided to make it a permanent part of my routine for four key reasons:
it minimizes obnoxious post-meal bloat
it encourages me to pile less onto my plate (as I’m reminded of how much effort it’s going to take to chew it all)
it makes it easier to tell when I’m actually full due to the slower eating pace
it makes it easier to take breaks while eating or stop altogether (since at some point, the reward of food is not sufficient for me to tolerate any more superchewing).
Wins all around!
Additional useful tips for limiting portions: taking only one-bite full’s worth did turn out to be effective for limiting intake of sweets/baked goods/fatty foods; portion controlling before cooking the food was extremely helpful for eating less. as was putting away foods as soon as possible to prevent mindless eating.
That’s a wrap for the limiting portions habit. In the next post, I’ll talk more about the next habit: Healthy & Delicious Meals!
Bye for now,
Nikita!