6-Day Healthy Eating Challenge

Welcome to Day 1 of your healthy eating challenge!

Remember that your challenges come every day, so you can complete the challenge anytime you like. Some challenges require a little prep – But don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it.

Today’s challenge tackles probably the single most important reason we can’t lose weight:

We eat too much.

And humans are notorious for underestimating the calories that we eat. In one study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (a little light reading for you) found that people underestimated the calories they were eating by a whopping 38%. That means a 200-calorie estimate could actually be 276 calories.

I know – The words ‘portion sizes’ are about the least sexiest words in the world, but figuring out yours can be a very eye-opening experience. It’s also your first step towards getting clear on your diet and what sort of goals you might want to set for yourself.

Okay, let’s get started!

Learn More About Getting Real With Your Eating

Your Day 1 Challenge – Measure!

What You Need:

Measure at least 2 meals one day this week

Choose any two meals (or all of your meals – totally up to you) and measure out all your portions. You don’t have to change your portions, you just have to measure them.

You have some options for how to do this:

  1. Use measuring cups – One obvious choice is to get out your measuring gear and start there. For example, if you eat cereal for breakfast, try this:  Pour your cereal in your bowl the way you usually do. Then put it in a measuring cup and write down how much you’re eating. Next, look at the nutrition info on the cereal box to see how much one serving is. Now you can put the number of servings you ate in your food journal.
  2. Eyeball it – This one is a little more subjective, but you probably know the comparisons, right? Like a serving of protein is the size of your palm, a serving of fruit is the size of a baseball…like that. Use this Portion Control Chart to help you get it right.

The Takeaway

What can you learn from this experiment? Here are some things to pay attention to and to ask yourself:

  • Do you tend to overeat? Which meals give you the most trouble?
  • Did having to measure your portions make a difference in how you ate? Did you worry that if you ate less, you might still be hungry?
  • How do you feel about yourself after this? Does it make you want to be more mindful of your portions?
  • How could you take this knowledge with you going forward? Maybe choose one meal a day to measure, for example.
  • How can you reward yourself for doing a good job?

Tools to Help With Portion Control

Meal Measure 1 Portion Control Tool 

21 Day Fix Portion Control Containers

I personally use this and it’s really made a huge difference.

Meal Trax Portion Control Plates

Bonus – Recipes

Nope, you don’t have to make these recipes…I just put them together for you because, if you’re like me, you need new ideas from time to time. So there’s a dinner, a snack and a breakfast recipe.

Also included is a shopping list for all of the recipes, for your shopping pleasure. Happy eating!

Here’s your shopping list.

Okay – there you go. Questions, comments, sarcastic remarks? Please email me and I’ll help you out