Saturday, October 30, 2010

When Did Two Become Six?

"I guess your eyes were bigger than your stomach." I heard my mother say this phrase to me on several occasions. Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, I would load my plate up with as much food as it could hold! After all I needed to make sure that I has an opportunity to eat all of my favorite things. I would enjoy my food, but I would always end up so full that I could barely finish everything that was on my plate. Can you relate?

Last Friday, Jon and I were out grocery shopping. We decided to stop by Sam's Club for dinner and other necessary grocery items. This was our very first time to stop and eat dinner at Sam's. Most of the time I choose where we are going to eat, so it's points friendly. However I was sick last week and was so tired that I just did not care where we went for dinner.

When we got to the counter, to order our pizza. we told the woman that we want three slices. Our plan was that I would eat one piece and Jon would eat the other two. Sounds perfect, right? Wrong...

To our surprise, the woman behind the counter proceeded to serve us six pieces of pizza. We had already paid for the pizza, so we could not change our order. However, we were shocked that at Sam's club "three pieces of pizza" meant six slices total. If we had known this, we would not have ordered that much pizza. I just laughed at how much pizza the two of us were supposed to eat!


Thankfully, Jon was there to help polish most of it off.


From now on when we are ordering pizza at Sam's Club, we know that we only need to buy "two pieces". However, there should have been a sign to let us know how many pieces we were actually getting. Americans want more and that is something that has drastically effected the portion sizes that we are served in this country.

Those of us who are watching our weight need to be so careful when we order fast food. You could end up with something two or three times bigger than you planned on. Be careful and pay attention to what you are order!

Here are some interesting graphics I found that are all related to portion distortion.





Here is a general guideline for eyeballing your portions. (Take the calorie counts with a grain of salt- they are very general.)



Be sure to read more about portion distortion in the latest Get Fit email from Dr. Jacobs.

7 comments:

mrsmarkdave said...

Wow! That is super sad. I took my nieces and nephews to get a drink in the mall while we waited for their pictures that we had just taken. I ordered 4 small sodas. I couldn't believe these HUGE cups that we were handed (and at Subway no less). What used to be a medium is apparently now a small?
So I had a 9 year old, an 8 year old, a 6 year old and a 2 year old walking through the mall holding these huge cups sucking in the contents (high fructose corn syrup). This was 3 weeks ago, and I'm still horrified.

Losing Brownies said...

Portions always get me. I have to box up half first just to make sure I don't over eat.

Tina said...

Hi Jen!

Thanks for the great and informative post! This info is really great to have! It's so true avbout the portions. What use to be a normal serving is now humongous. Lunch size servings are what we should eat for Dinner.

I try to eat the larger size meal at Lunch and smaller meal at dinner time. eating so much at night and then going to sleep is not good at all! But it doesn't always work out. I do the best I can!

Sorry I haven'teen around lately. Things are slowing down and my furkid Jake had his surgery for Bladder Cancer. We didn't think it would be able to be done, then the Lord provided the money. He had it done on Wed. He came home today. A lot of work involved, but worth it !

I have also started blogging again! Between dealing with some stuff and then taking care of jake until we got the money, and working as much as I could get to pay forthe portion we had to pay. They wanted the money today! So I'm back!

In Christ's Love & Prayers
Sis in Christ
Tina

Anonymous said...

This is awesome! Thanks Jen :) I printed out the chart with the hand symbols to put it on my fridge!

Jen Newsham said...

MrsMarkDave - Wow. Yes, I think that servings sizes in the US are going to continue to get bigger and bigger. That is scary.

Losing Brownies - I do the same thing! If it sits in front of me I will eat it.

Tina - Thanks! I am so glad that the Lord provided the money for Jake. Thanks for the updated!! It's nice to have you back.

Jaime - That's a great idea. I should put these on my fridge too! I hope they help.

Rachel said...

I noticed the portion thing when we moved to Brazil. I got this tiny little piece of steak and I was like, where's my meat!! Now I'm used to it. I can't even polish off a can of coke by myself. Needless to say, I'm about 15 lbs lighter here, without dieting. Just eating.

Jen Newsham said...

Rachel - That's awesome! Maybe I need to move to another country, because I can't eat all the food I get in the US.

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