Portion Control vs. Calorie Counting

I've been counting calories & that works, but am considering portion
control. I like calorie counting because its almost always very straight
forward. Measure, calculate, count, stick to the program and you lose
weight.

Portion control, though, seems like the kind of thing that would be easier
to stick with over the long-haul of weight loss, and throughout life in
general. Why? Because you develop more of an eye for sizing things up. Also,
portion control seems to me to be based on well balanced meals.

I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both ways, who thinks what
is better, etc.

Also, if anybody has a link to a portion control PDF, I'd appreciate it. I'd
like something I can print that has circles and rectangles on it as opposed
to a computer mouse, a deck of cards and a tennis ball.

Thanks!

Dumb question, but how do you count calories if you are not measuring
portion size?

M

wrote in message
oups.com...
Dumb question, but how do you count calories if you are not measuring
portion size?

My question would be the other way round. How do you eye-up portions and
calculate calories? It seems impossible to strictly control your diet on
portion control.

I weigh or measure almost everything and calculate the calories. Otherwise,
I take the calories off the package if I eat the whole package. That's what
I consider "calorie counting".

Portion control, on the other hand, gives you a "deck of cards sized piece
of low-fat meat". Seems to me that there's a lot of difference in the amount
of calories between different kinds of "low fat meat". For example, tuna vs.
chicken breast vs. lean beef. The same goes for fruit -- there is a lot of
variation in calorie counts for various types of fruit. The amount of
caloric variation is one of the things that really bothers me about portion
control diets.

One time, and it was quite tedious I might mention, I went through the
USDA's 2000 calorie portion control diet. Once with all higher calorie
foods, once will all lower calorie foods. I only used foods that they had
used on their list, that were given as examples as to what fit into the
various food groups. I don't remember what the exact results, but as I
remember they swung between about 1700 and 2700 calories a day!!! When I
averaged out the counts of all the foods the daily count still came out to
like 2200.

Sorry for the rant here. I'd like to take a good shot at portion contol but
have these underlying concerns. Portion control is often recommended but I
haven't heard much in the way of success stories.

Mike

On Jun 16, 4:02 pm, "em" wrote:
I've been counting calories & that works, but am considering portion
control. I like calorie counting because its almost always very straight
forward. Measure, calculate, count, stick to the program and you lose
weight.

Portion control, though, seems like the kind of thing that would be easier
to stick with over the long-haul of weight loss, and throughout life in
general. Why? Because you develop more of an eye for sizing things up. Also,
portion control seems to me to be based on well balanced meals.

I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both ways, who thinks what
is better, etc.

Also, if anybody has a link to a portion control PDF, I'd appreciate it. I'd
like something I can print that has circles and rectangles on it as opposed
to a computer mouse, a deck of cards and a tennis ball.

Thanks!

Some people are able to eat the correct amount of food over all and
yet not count calories....but if you have a problem with your weight,
I don't think that is for you. Why? It strikes me as the reason you
want to change to portion control is to somehow trick yourself that
you are eating fewer calories. You MUST count calories. Portions are
deceiving as well. Two bites of pecan pie with ice cream might contain
as many calories as an entire bowl of oatmeal for example. Go ahead,
try it....but it ain't gonna work. Now if you want to do portion
control AND count calories, then that should work. dkw

On Jun 16, 5:02 pm, "em" wrote:
I've been counting calories & that works, but am considering portion
control. I like calorie counting because its almost always very straight
forward. Measure, calculate, count, stick to the program and you lose
weight.

Portion control, though, seems like the kind of thing that would be easier
to stick with over the long-haul of weight loss, and throughout life in
general. Why? Because you develop more of an eye for sizing things up. Also,
portion control seems to me to be based on well balanced meals.

I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both ways, who thinks what
is better, etc.

Also, if anybody has a link to a portion control PDF, I'd appreciate it. I'd
like something I can print that has circles and rectangles on it as opposed
to a computer mouse, a deck of cards and a tennis ball.

Thanks!

I counted calories for close to 5 years -- 2 years while losing 130
lbs and then another 2 3/4 years or so while maintaining. A couple of
months ago I decided to move away from calorie counting. I guess you
could call what I am doing portion control, in the sense that I'm
trying to eat at a level suitable for maintenance -- though I don't
tabulate specific counts of servings of anything.

One reason I think this works for me at this point is that I had so
much experience with the calorie counting that I came to have a very
good sense of how much of different foods I could eat while staying
within my desired calorie level. So, while I no longer count, I can
pretty much tell what an appropriate serving size is and how much I
can eat in a day. So calorie counting was a learning tool that
enabled me to move to a more relaxed approach eventually.

Chris
262/130s/130s

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:02:36 -0700, em wrote:

I've been counting calories & that works, but am considering portion
control. I like calorie counting because its almost always very straight
forward. Measure, calculate, count, stick to the program and you lose
weight.

Portion control, though, seems like the kind of thing that would be easier
to stick with over the long-haul of weight loss, and throughout life in
general. Why? Because you develop more of an eye for sizing things up. Also,
portion control seems to me to be based on well balanced meals.


I like both. I use software to enter meals and keep tabs on calories,
though I'm not entirely religious about it, but that's easy, because I
can pre-enter commonly eaten meals, so just a click to enter and keep
track. Doing at least some calorie tracking is helpful in terms of
figuring out if I'm getting a reasonable number or going over too
often.

I try to watch portions too. I prepare some of my meals for the day in
either the evening before or morning, and they are portioned out.
Salads go into 2.5 cup ZipLocs... it either fits or doesn't, LOL! A
salad is roughly 3 ounces lean meat/fish/poultry, about a 5th red
pepper, 4-6 baby carrots, 6-9 cucumber slices, 1 onion slice, handful
of spinach. And I use either 1 tablespoon of regular dressing or 2 of
lowfat dressing.

Dinner... if I'm fixing chili or stew, or soup, I limit myself to a 2
cup bowl. I don't always eat that much, but I'm not going to eat more
than that. If I'm fixing things like steak or chicken, a single small
chicken breast is fine, or half one if they are large.

I don't worry over much about non-starchy veggies... and I don't get
crazed over watching lean protein either. I get full fast eating it,
so it's a pretty rare thing I'll go overboard there. Can't afford to
buy more than I do now anyway. Likewise for veggies.

Fruits I generally limit to 3 servings a day.

What I watch especially are starches and fats and sugars. Those, I
measure rather carefully, because it's really easy to go to town
snacking on things like nuts, for instance.

I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both ways, who thinks what
is better, etc.


I think portion control is probably easier, but I think at least
occasional calorie counting to be sure you are on track with the
portions is a good idea. The cleaner you eat, the more likely that
portion control will work well, I think.

--
Cynthia
262/239.5/152

There is a very successful diet clinic where I live, that works on
portion control - you buy a little scale. You are allowed so many
portions a day of various things and they tell you what the portion
size is - if you don't have to weigh the item, you measure it by
cupful, or by the routine package size.

They provide lists of various serving sizes by product or category
(i.e. a bread category might be 1 sheet of matzah, or 15 rice
crackers, or.....). So, for example, when you are in the weight loss
mode, a lean meat portion is 3 1/2 ounces, they want you to eat a
total of 16 ounces of vegetables daily (and they tell you which ones,
so you don't tank up on garbanzo beans). A fruit portion might be a
medium sized apple (yes, some latitude as to what "medium" means, but
no major consequence in terms of calories), or a premade commercial
cup of unsweetened applesauce (113 grams each).

You can be very successful on the diet and never count a calorie. My
problem always was portion control. What I thought of as a normal
portion was WAAAAAY more than I needed or should have (i.e. if I was
having pasta, I'd fill the plate to the brim and go back for seconds).

Besides portion control, for me, the permanent change that was needed
was to essentially STOP eating most starches (i.e. rice, potatoes,
bread, pasta) because once I start, I can't stop - I know that, and
having fallen off the wagon on maintenance once, oy. I know what a
meat portion is, I eat very low fat (another thing I have to do, or I
get into snarffing up cream cheese), I eat a lot of fruits and veg.
The only time I really count calories in maintenance is if I want to
eat something off my routine - at which point, I read the package to
figure out what a reasonable portion is (i.e. if I'm shooting for a
meat portion of 200 calories or whatever).

M

On Jun 17, 10:23 am, wrote:

The only time I really count calories in maintenance is if I want to
eat something off my routine - at which point, I read the package to
figure out what a reasonable portion is (i.e. if I'm shooting for a
meat portion of 200 calories or whatever).

I do this too. I don't really think of it as counting calories, just
as making choices based on calorie content.

Chris
262/130s/130s

Chris wrote:
On Jun 16, 5:02 pm, "em" wrote:
I've been counting calories & that works, but am considering portion
control. I like calorie counting because its almost always very straight
forward. Measure, calculate, count, stick to the program and you lose
weight.

Portion control, though, seems like the kind of thing that would be easier
to stick with over the long-haul of weight loss, and throughout life in
general. Why? Because you develop more of an eye for sizing things up. Also,
portion control seems to me to be based on well balanced meals.

I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both ways, who thinks what
is better, etc.

Also, if anybody has a link to a portion control PDF, I'd appreciate it. I'd
like something I can print that has circles and rectangles on it as opposed
to a computer mouse, a deck of cards and a tennis ball.

Thanks!

I counted calories for close to 5 years -- 2 years while losing 130
lbs and then another 2 3/4 years or so while maintaining. A couple of
months ago I decided to move away from calorie counting. I guess you
could call what I am doing portion control, in the sense that I'm
trying to eat at a level suitable for maintenance -- though I don't
tabulate specific counts of servings of anything.

One reason I think this works for me at this point is that I had so
much experience with the calorie counting that I came to have a very
good sense of how much of different foods I could eat while staying
within my desired calorie level. So, while I no longer count, I can
pretty much tell what an appropriate serving size is and how much I
can eat in a day. So calorie counting was a learning tool that
enabled me to move to a more relaxed approach eventually.

Chris
262/130s/130s

I agree with what Chris says.

Portion control is what you graduate to after plenty of time
counting calories and working out what calorie level and
macronutrient ratio works best for you as an individual.

In other words, after you've prepared the same meals and
weighed the same ingredients hundreds of times, you'll
instinctively know what the proper portions are. And
that assumes that you're not doing anything advanced like
calorie and/or carbohydrate cycling. Further, you need
to be able to trust yourself and/or have other forms of
feedback in place to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Can you trust yourself and do you have other forms of
feedback in place? Do you have enough experience to
know what the proper portions are and how to put together
appropriate meals? When you don't have to document every
morsel, the world of restaurants and other social eating
opportunities opens up. Can you trust yourself in those
situations? These are questions you need to ask yourself.

I'll use myself as an example. I spent a year and a half
documenting everything (calories, macronutrients, water,
exercise, emotions and anything else that seemed like it
would help later on). In that time I developed a pretty
good feel for what worked. Just recently I spent a few
months using portion control (basically just doing what
I know works just without documenting everything). It
worked out alright because I kept an eye on my weight to
keep myself honest.

Most recently I've decided to experiment with some more
advanced techniques, so I went back to documenting calories
and macronutrient percentages. I also added some new
instruments. For years I used an old dial type scale
and a tape measure. For large scale weight loss that's
all I needed. I've gotten down to where the weight loss
is much slower and the threat of losing muscle is much
more real. In other words, I still want to become even
leaner than I am now, but the normal method of just eating
less and less and exercising more and more is likely to
result in mostly muscle loss. To weigh less but not be
in any better shape (bodyfat percentage worse, physically
weaker, with a lowered metabolic rate) isn't what I'm after.
So, I invested in a bioelectrical impedance bodyfat percentage
testing device. I used it with my dial type scale for awhile,
and eventually upgraded to a digital scale. Now, on
a weekly basis, I document bodyweight, lean mass and
fat mass with the goals being lean mass sparing and
bodyfat loss. I adjust the "big three" (diet, weight
training, and aerobic exercise) in an effort to continue
losing bodyfat while sparing muscle.

What you can take away from this is the importance of
having goals and feedback methods in place to insure
continued success. In short, if you remove calorie
counting make sure you have something else in place.
With modern devices it's very easy to keep an eye on
body composition. A few minutes once a week is all it
takes. With that info it's possible to adjust a simple
portion controlled (instinctive) diet and exercise
program to stay on track.