Too Much of a Good Thing?

Yesterday I was happily making a double batch of my Dilled Carrots when it occurred to me that I was intending to have a binge-fest on them later in the day. It's a WW recipe. It's carrots, for goodness sake and there's no sugar, just a pinch of salt, and none of the bread-type things that are such red-light foods for me. Is it okay to binge on good-for-you food? Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?

Several days ago Diane at Fit to the Finish wrote a about portion control in this post. Her great post, including a list of 7 Tips to help regulate portion control, and the insightful comments to that post got me thinking. I decided to make portion control one of my Spring Focus short term goals. When I decided that, I was thinking about things like whole wheat pasta or chicken. I certainly wasn't thinking about the portion size of my veggies or fruits.

When I started this weight loss and life style journey I chose what Weight Watcher's then called the CORE plan. I like it because it didn't call for food tracking. You simply ate from the list of allowed foods until you were satisfied. The allowed foods include whole grain pasta, whole grains, popcorn, whole grain cereal, brown rice, lean meat chicken and fish, all veggies, fruits, fat free dairy milk and cheese, healthy oils (olive, canola), and eggs. No bread, chips, bakery goods, candy . . . . This was a diet that I could live with. DH joined me and we eat this way all the time now. Anything extra costs WW points and we get 35 of those each week. This works for us and is healthy and do-able.

At first we both lost weight well and DH even reached his WW goal (he lost 30 pounds and has stayed at that weight for over a year and a half). I lost 52 pounds and got to within 3 pounds of my goal. Right at that time, my father had a devastating stroke and I became responsible for finding the right care and a new living situation for him. I ate too many meals from hospital vending machines and just sort of lost my focus on WW. Yes, we still had CORE meals at home, but I fell into eating for emotional reasons and non-CORE foods started creeping into my day. Bread, brownies, chips, toast, butter, candy bars . . . . My exercise also suffered. I've done the C25K before and a year ago I ran a 10 mile race, but as I gained weight, and spent many hours a week visiting my father or taking him to appointments, I found it easy to slack off on exercising. I started walking a lot more than running on my "runs." I regained 39 of those hard-fought pounds over the last 18 months. Obviously, I'm back to my losing ways, but I've learned some things about portion control along the way.

I have to say that I never really thought about portion control when I was losing with CORE. I stuck pretty strictly to the good foods on the list and was good about limiting any non-CORE foods to my 35 point/week limit. I'm a slow loser, but I probably would have lost a little more quickly had I watched my portions. It was only about a year ago that it occurred to me that I didn't need to always serve myself two pieces of chicken when we had chicken for dinner. And my portion sizes didn't have to be the same size as my 6'2" DH's portion. And the popcorn. Let me just say that one or two of the large size bags of 94% ff microwave popcorn were a normal daily allotment. I did try to limit myself to one bag on the day before my WI because of the salt.

When I started my current push to finally finish losing this weight, I went back to the WW materials about the CORE plan and re-read what it actually said. I've incorporated a new aspect of the plan to what I do. Portions matter. From my morning cereal and fruit through to dinner, portions matter. I'm using measuring cups to dole out my cereal, pasta and rice these days. I serve myself one piece of chicken (and not the largest piece!) at dinner. I make sure my portions are smaller than DH's.

Back to those carrots. They are great. I did eat some. But I didn't

eat them all and I didn't binge on carrots. I am going to watch portions on some of the high calorie fruits & veggies (avocados are a particular culprit), and I'm not sure I'm ready to start measuring out my portions of relatively low calorie vegetables and fruits, but I'm not going to plan to binge on anything and I'm going to keep an eye on things.

What do you think? Can you eat too much of a good thing?

Here's the recipe for those carrots. They are served chilled and make a wonderful appetizer.

Marinated Dilled Carrots

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup water

1/2 teaspoon pickling spice, tied in cheesecloth

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 garlic clove

1 pound carrots, about 8 medium, pared and cut into 1/4-inch thick sticks

dash artificial sweetner

1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill

1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley

1/4 teaspoon pepper

In small saucepan combine vinegar, water, pickling spice, salt, and garlic; simmer 5 minutes. In another saucepan cook carrots in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to a shallow dish just large enough to hold carrots in one layer. (or to a gallon size ziplock bag) Remove and discard pickling spice and garlic clove from vinegar mixture. Add sweetner to brine and pour over hot carrots; toss. Sprinkle with dill, parsley, and pepper. Cover tightly and chill at least 3 hours, turning every 1/2 hour.