Friday, November 15, 2013

10k Views Blog 2: Challenge!

One of you requested I make up some sort of challenge for everyone to partake in. Off the top of my head... portions!

I'm actually strangely adept at measuring out a proper portion of most food items. Aaron was amazed I actually applied less peanut butter to my pb&j's than was the serving size back when I was counting calories during breastfeeding in a futile effort to broach 2500 per day, and I kind of slather a piece of bread thoroughly. Rice, fruits, veggies? All pretty good! But things like candy, crackers, chips, and cereal? Hilariously bad. I may accurately judge how much of those things I should eat, I just ignore it and eat two sometimes three or even four servings of said foods. Portion control can be difficult when all the food available to you is actually delicious. It's also hard when so little attention is ever paid to labels, really. Most people don't even know that a serving size from a can of soup is just half the can.

First world problems. amirite?

So whether you're watching your weight or not, this challenge is difficult and offers a lot of perspective. I challenge you to for at least 24 hours to eat only the appointed serving size of the foods you eat. In example, that means only 1/4 a cup of cereal in your bowl with 1/2 a cup of skim milk (substitute skim with lesser amounts of other milks based on fat % -- enjoy your dry-ass cereal). Only 12 potato chips on your plate. Only 2 Oreo cookies for dessert. Only 1 Poptart from the pouch. Just 1 cup of milk. 1 slice of bread for your sandwich, with 2 slices of thin lunch meat, 1 slice of cheese, and less than 1 tbsp of any condiment.

You can't cheat by just breaking up what you'd normally have into several meals over the day. After you've had 1 food, you can't return to it for the entire day. To clarify, I mean specific foods not food groups. So only 1 apple, but you can have a banana later or some mango. Only 1 servings of salad but you can later have peas or carrots. Only 1 sandwich but you can also have toast or meat with other meals. And so on an so forth. If you normally eat three meals and two snacks, you must stick to this regimen. If you normally have 6 meals and no snacks, you must stick to this regimen. No extra meals or snacks to make up for what you didn't eat!

You're probably going to be kind of hungry, but that's half the challenge.

Let me know how it goes. Did you succeed or fail? What was that like for you? Was it harder or easier than you thought it would be? Did you surprise yourself? Did you learn something about food? Could you imagine doing this every day? Inquiring minds would apparently like to know!

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