Do you know how much you are eating?

I did the Fort Lewis Down and Dirty Mud Run 5K on Saturday. I ran with team "ZipFizz". Here is the picture. Take a look and then I will tell you my epiphany.

You see the three healthy looking women on the the left? They are active, healthy and maintain a good weight for their heights. Then look at me, but not to closely please? I am larger then they are, thankfully that shirt was covering my mid-section that was threatening to dunlop over the waistband of my shorts! I saw this picture shortly after the run on Saturday, and my first thought was "wow, I look so much bigger than they do" my second thought was "why is that?" I have been thinking about this a lot, all weekend in fact. I am an active individual, I love to run, swim, chase after my girls and go for walks, why am I over weight? So I decided to do a little observation of myself, and I painfully realized that I eat WAY to much food! My problem is that I have no idea what portions I should be eating. If I am controlling my portion size I can then control my calories, equaling weight-loss. Which is what I want.

I have done some research and found some pretty good information that I thought I would share. I know that I am surely not the only one struggling with this! I want to figure it out now, so I can teach my girls healthy portions and healthy eating habits. I went to Freedieting.com and found their calorie calculator. I put in my information and found out that if I want to maintain my 181 lbs (wow I just said that on the internet, help me!) I should be consuming 2,165cal. If I want weight-loss, I should be consuming 1732cal and if I want extreme weight-loss, 1448cal. Granted, going from 2,165 to 1,448 would most likely send my body into shock and probably not a good idea, I will stick with aiming for 1,732cal. With that in mind I then went to the Mayo Clinic's website and found an awesome slideshow all about portion control and gave me some great visual clues to help me with portion control. Here are some pictures to give you an idea.

This is a medium orange, the size of a tennis ball.

Chicken, Pork, Steak any meat really should be about the size of a deck of cards.

Dairy should be about the size of four to five dice. This one is hard, how do you tell that amount when the cheese is melted all over some wonderful pizza? Please tell me!

Pasta and rice should be about the size of a hockey puck, I guess this means I need to buy a hockey puck so I know what size that actually is!

Here are a few tips that will also help if you are trying to watch your portions and ultimatly your calories.

• When at a restaurant ask the Waiter for a to-go box and put half of your entree in the box, because typically restaurants serve about double what you should eat.
• If you are going to eat fast-food take it home and put it on a plate, you would be surpised and how full your plate will be!
• Then order smaller portions, I mean do we really the king size or the super king size? Come on now.
• If your super yummy evilly tempting treats are easily accessible you will eat them more often. So, out of sight out of mind right? Put the ice cream in the back of the freezer, I mean like behind soemthing. 
• When drinking that must have glass of OJ in the morning, drink it out of a tall skinny glass because you will feel like you have had more. 
• Did you know that dried fruit is 3/4 smaller that their original size? Meaning a cup of grapes equates to 1/4 cup of raisins. 

Now that I have enlightened myself on portion control I am really going to try and use it! That way I am eating better and my family is eating better. I mean, really isn't that what it is all about?

Now that you know a bit more go and test your smarts here......Pop Quiz!

Oh, this is a good one too! WebMD's Portion Control Plate