Saturday, January 08, 2005

Calories, Portion Sizes and Saturday Morning Bickering…

Well, in my experimental phase I have officially decided to switch gears from the low-carb diet to a system of just watching portion sizes and calories. The low-carb diet undoubtedly works – I have had great success with it in the past – but it just doesn’t make sense with my lifestyle. I can’t grill up a steak in the company kitchen for lunch and I can’t force feed my daughter vegetables when there’s none on my own plate.

I bought several of the Lean Cuisine frozen meals to try to acclimate myself to the proper portion sizes. In our house it’s hard because EH is an eating machine. At a Burger King drive through, he’ll typically order 2 double whoppers, 2 bacon double cheeseburgers, a large fries and a large vanilla shake. He’s 6’6 and weighs 228 and is all lean and tight and firm. He could gain another 30 lbs and still be called a “tall, thin guy”. Bastard.

Meanwhile, I am 5’6 and lucky to have the true hourglass figure in that my top and bottom are balanced and separated by a defined waist. But…I could stand to lose a few pounds and tone up.

Darling daughter is lost between us both. She has a little pot belly, but she’s also all legs, courtesy of her dad who has amazing long, lean legs. So, we do try to teach darling daughter positive eating habits in hopes of saving her from the dieting world when she gets older.

So, I was a little disgusted to realize EH had fed her an 800 calorie breakfast this morning. Literally. Eight hundred calories. And she was still hungry. That’s just insane to me. She had these cinnamon French toast sticks and syrup – where only 6 sticks equals 420 calories. Plus 4 mini pancakes, also with syrup, for another 320 calories plus a tall glass of orange juice. Admittedly not a pig-out or a King’s feast…but nonetheless, she had just had nearly half the recommended daily allotment of calories in her first meal, and she was STILL hungry.

You hear all of these news stories about America being the fattest country and how our portion sizes are gigantic and unreasonable. I’m beginning to understand how true it all is. And worse, I realize I drink the majority of my calories when I sip sodas, teas, juices, etc.

Crazy.

Posted by Red :: 10:22 AM :: | ---------------------------------------