Holy Smokes- we are overeating BIG TIME

So on my journey to start using correct portions, I am learning a LOT about the way we eat, or rather , the way society portions our food. Because, let's face it, when we go out to dinner, we clean our plates. We were taught, or at least I was, that children in other countries are starving, so you better clean your plate.

No wonder we have such an obesity problem in the US! We are eating 3-4 times more then what the suggested serving size is on everything.

Tonight, we got home from doing errands and my job, and I decided to make us a salad with some grilled chicken strips. Salad's good for you right? It is, until you slather on the dressing and cheese that most American's put on their salads.

This time I measured it out. Every bit of it.

Salad- 1/2 a head of lettuce (medium sized) is 30 calories. Lettuce is a good food, and is mainly water, with no fat and little calories, so eat as much of that as you want. Its considered, on most diets, a free food.

Dressing- 2 tablespoons is NOT a lot of dressing. I measured it out. My husband was like "um where is the rest of it." im like thats it. That is all you get. He's like "That is not enough to cover all this salad." But in fact, it is. When you take the time to mix your salad with your dressing, its amazing how much it actually covers. Total calories for 2 tablespoons Kraft Buttermilk Ranch Dressing ( bc sorry I dont do the light kraft its gross) 120 calories and 12 grams of fat

Croutons- you get FOUR. Yes I said 4. Thats it. Think about the amount you get when you go out to eat. Usually 2-3 times that. 35 calories and 2 grams of fat

I also add pickles to my salads. I <3 Pickles- I actually had 3 servings of pickles, pickles are usually a "free food" on diets, but watch the sodium. We use Vlassic low sodium or we rinse our pickles off.
3 servings Vlassic Pickles- 0 all the way around

Then we each had 1 cup of soup- we shared the can, since there are 2 servings per can
Campbell's Healthy Request Old Fashioned Vegetable Soup w/ beef and noodles- 120 calories and 2 grams of fat

Our entire meal- 313 calories, but this left room for DESSERT. Which, If i would have not measured our food, there is no way id have calories left over for dessert. No way. So i got to indulge in 2 servings of sugar free chocolate and vanilla pudding w/ organic bananas. Total on this- 100 calories for the whole thing. And thats two servings of each of the chocolate and vanilla.

Im changing a lot of things, but how I eat and HOW MUCH I eat, is a big one.

Think about that the next time you dish up your dinner, and think to yourself "Yeah, this looks like one serving." you could be cheating yourself out of loosing weight, by consuming more than you realize!