Lose Weight Permanently
You’ve spent excessive amounts of time, energy, and resources attempting to eat healthy and lose weight.
Needless to say, you’re spent. You’re ready to move on from that approach. I’m here to teach you how.
In this hour masterclass, you’ll learn what’s preventing you from creating the weight loss you want, along with what’s necessary to solve for healthy eating and weight loss for the very last time.
FREE MASTERCLASS
without tracking and planning
Sep 19
Portion Control
Craving control over your portion sizes?
Obsessing over the right amount to eat isn’t the secret to healthy eating.
In this episode, we’re diving deep into what really matters when it comes to portion control—HINT: it’s not about strict measurements or stringent rules.
You’ll discover:
→ Why understanding portion sizes is just the beginning, not the end-all, of healthy eating
→ How basic behavioral skills of healthy eating can drastically change how you approach your meals
→ Why the foundational skills of a naturally healthy eater go beyond just following portion guidelines
→ Practical steps to transition from portion-focused eating to naturally healthy eating eating, enabling you to trust your body’s signals without second-guessing
Ready to shift from micromanaging your meals to mastering your eating habits with ease?
Tune in to explore how to truly eat in tune with your body’s needs, making healthy eating a natural part of your life without the constant stress of measuring every bite.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | RSS
Here are some extra resources to go along with this episode:
- Weight Loss Without Tracking (podcast)
- People Pleasing Eating (podcast)
- Stop Overeating (free course)
- Own Your Eating Habits (coaching)
Episode Transcript
Hello, my friends, welcome back to the podcast this week. I’m happy you’re here with me today. We’re going to talk about proper portion sizes with food and portion control. So I really do get asked this question all of the time. Y’all will say, Kat, how do I know what a proper portion size is.
What is that exact right answer? So we’re going to talk about that here. And as usual, I’m not going to explain it in a by the book way that you’ve heard everywhere else. So I’m going to explain it in the context of learning to eat healthy naturally, which means adopting a manner of healthy eating that you can carry with you through life.
It’s healthy eating without depending on micromanagement perfection. Or willpower. So just know our discussion of portion sizes today is going to fit into that. Now, before we get into that content, I have an announcement I want to share with you that you will want to hear. So on October 3rd, I’m going to be hosting a live workshop teaching you how to [00:01:00] eat healthy, consistently.
So this workshop is open to everyone and anyone who would like to attend. It’s completely free. And when you attend, you’re going to learn the strategy to eating healthy consistently in a way that you can actually stick to. So just from attending this workshop, you’re going to experience
tangible changes with your eating habits. Now, the content is just that good. So I want to cordially invite you. What you’re going to do is go to catrentas. com forward slash workshop. That’s catrentas. com forward slash workshop. And you’re going to click sign up now. This will register you for the workshop, which will be hosted live on.
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024 at 2 p. m. Eastern time. And then if you can’t make that time, make sure you still sign up because you’ll need to register to get access to that replay. But I do highly encourage you to show up live with us because I will personally be coaching attendees through their roadblocks so they can create [00:02:00] consistency with healthy eating now.
So Catrentas. com slash workshop. I can’t wait to see you there. It’s going to be so fun. And if you need to pause this episode right now to sign up, please do so.
All right, now let’s get into a highly requested topic, which is portion sizes. And let’s be real. This is a very sexy and compelling topic for us type airs, because it’s a topic that implies there’s a right and a wrong there’s rules we can follow that if we follow them correctly, we’ll guarantee our success where if we know the exact amount to put on our plate, the job is done.
And then. Boom. We’ll eat healthy consistently and have control with food. Sound familiar? And here’s the thing, having basic knowledge of portion sizes can be useful. So this is the information you’ll receive when you type portion sizes into Google. You’ve likely seen this before. It will tell you that a proper size of protein is about the size of your palm.
A proper serving of veggies is the size of your finger. [00:03:00] Fist carbs is about the size of a cupped hand and a serving a fat is about the size of your thumb. Pretty useful and simple way to understand portion sizes, right? So no one is denying that. Now here’s what tends to happen. Many of you will believe that you don’t know enough about portion sizes.
That this is the reason why you’re not consistently making healthy eating decisions, and you’ll think it’s a knowledge problem. And I’m not knocking this, I have a type A brain as well that thinks this way, but here’s what I want to offer you. You already know everything you’ll ever need to know. About portion sizes in this way, you already know, and if you really didn’t, I just gave you that information here.
The best knowledge of portion sizes you will ever have is what’s recommended on Google. So if this is true, then what? What’s the next step? What’s actually stopping you from eating healthy consistently? And what’s stopping you from losing weight as a result of that? [00:04:00] It’s overeating, it’s emotional eating, and it’s eating more than what you need.
So it’s knowing that recommended portion sizes can, but only to a very short extent. Because what will ultimately determine the proper amount of food that you should be consuming on a daily basis is your own human diet. body, right? So it’s not an article or a graphic on Google telling you what your plate of food should look like.
And remember, we’re holding two truths at once here. A basic understanding of portion sizes can be helpful, but it’s not enough to change your eating behaviors for life.
Naturally healthy eaters don’t base how they eat on Google image telling them how to fill their plate. They don’t hold up a fist every time they put protein on their plate, I want to offer. And there’s nothing wrong with doing this, I have done this in the past, but I want you to trade obsessing over the right portions or portion sizes with [00:05:00] developing basic foundational skills with healthy eating.
That is what I’m here to help you do. So the skills you’ll need to master to eat the proper amount of food for your body, which is what we hope portion sizes will help us accomplish.
The skills are emotional regulation. Knowing your food preferences and honoring your body cues. Now the answer to your eating habits is not in a nutritional article or a graphic online. telling you the makeup of your plate. No shade. It’s just not right. It’s from you mastering the skills of a naturally healthy eater.
So let’s talk about all three in more detail and how each will create an experience of eating proper portions without needing to micromanage your plate or spin out about what proper portions are. portion sizes are. So emotional regulation. This is something I talk a lot about. I am an expert in this. I have coached women on this for years and it is the root my friends of creating control with food.
If you are my client, if you’re an [00:06:00] owner eating habits, you know exactly what I’m talking about, right? As human beings with emotions, we will naturally be drawn to emotional reactive decisions with food. Perfectly normal. And here’s how this works. You will experience an uncomfortable emotion like Overwhelm, shame, inadequacy, fear, all that really fun stuff.
And then your primitive brain that is naturally designed to avoid discomfort will offer you an urge to find comfort. This is how your brain works. So the most readily available source of comfort as humans is food because we need to eat to survive, right? We’re always going to have a next upcoming meal.
So if you’re experiencing uncomfortable emotion. Which will happen, you can expect an urge to emotionally eat, which is just a reactive, urgent desire to eat in a way that emotionally comforts you. So it doesn’t always look like you with a tub of ice cream. It’s in the small [00:07:00] moments that you decide to eat, not because you were hungry, but because you quote unquote deserved it or quote unquote, had a long day.
So that’s emotional hunger. That’s not based on natural hunger. The skill you need to learn to not emotionally eat is emotional regulation. And I know this can sound very diagnostic and fancy, but it’s simple. It just means you need to become skilled at staying aware of your emotions. So your body can process them effectively.
When you don’t do this, your emotions will, for lack of better words, pile up in your body and ultimately create stress. And stress impacts how high your cravings are and your rate of weight loss. When you reach a stress state, this will leave you in a reactive, emotional state with food, and this is when you’re going to feel out of control and like you aren’t even the one making your eating decisions in a moment.
When you emotionally regulate and you adopt this skill, you’re You will [00:08:00] naturally lower stress, minimize your cravings, and as a result, be able to eat proper portion sizes with ease. So this is the most foundational step to mastering your portion sizes very naturally. It’s regulating your emotions and being aware of them.
Next is the skill of knowing your food preferences. And we are all guilty, especially as more type A women of spinning out about what they like. the right foods to eat are. So we will place way too much importance and value on the right foods. And it’s not that it’s not important to be aware of proper nutrition and the types of foods we put into our body.
But what I want you to see is that you likely know everything you’ll ever need to know about nutrition already. It’s pretty elementary unless you have specific symptoms that you need you. taken care of that are related to other things going on with your body.
Eating healthy as a lifestyle to reach your ideal weight, that doesn’t require really [00:09:00] advanced knowledge of nutrition. So I want to offer that you likely know enough now. And if not, that information is easily accessible to you, right? Again, Google images will come through and it’s going to teach you what healthy carbs, fats, and proteins look like.
That has its place. However, what I’m referring to here. Is knowing your individual food preferences as a unique human, meaning you’re aware of your personal tastes with foods. So what foods are most pleasurable to you and you’re aware of what foods are most satisfying to you and your body. Now, this is going to sound weird, but I want you to imagine if today was your first day on earth in your human body.
So you had zero concept of what foods you prefer, how food tastes, what foods satisfy you. What I would advise you to do is to get curious and become the best expert of your food preferences to learn about yourself as an eater. [00:10:00] And as humans, we have pleasure and satisfaction meters. with food that need to be filled.
These are basic human needs. So in other words, if you don’t prioritize foods that you genuinely like and foods that feel good in your body, cravings will naturally occur. Your body will seek to fill that need. So practice becoming aware of what foods taste best to you And what foods feel best in your body.
And seriously, I would offer to write a list. I have a note in my phone and you can do this too. It will open up your eyes to what foods will set you up for success and allow you to feel satisfied.
This will start naturally informing you of what your portion sizes can look like on a plate. And yes, this requires some of your exploration because you are not a blueprint, my friend. You are a complex human. So have fun exploring how your body works because only you can be the best expert. Now, to use me as an [00:11:00] example, and I just ate breakfast, so I’ll talk about that.
I know for me that my body loves a balanced mixture of healthy carbs, fats, and proteins in the morning. I also prioritize foods that I genuinely like.
I nurture my eating habits in a way where I’m looking for ways to make my eating experiences more enjoyable. So this morning, I had a slice of whole grain bread toasted with half an avocado on top, a little sprinkle of goat cheese, a fried egg, and, , that everything but the bagel seasoning from Trader Joe’s, we actually don’t have a Trader Joe’s near us because we live in a small local beach town.
So I literally order this stuff on Amazon. It is so, so good. Highly recommend. Don’t hear this and think that the point is that this is what you should eat in your mornings and put on your plate necessarily. It’s great. I love it, but no, I’m telling you this for you to start considering and experimenting with what your body most needs and prefers.
because your body is ready [00:12:00] to tell you. I know my own portion sizes because I have found these answers for myself and I also do have a cup of coffee and right now it’s pumpkin creamer. My fall starts in September so I’ve got to do it but figure out what your needs are. Practice being a beginner at understanding your own food preferences, and you’d be surprised to see how much awareness it gives you with portion control and what to put on your plate.
All right. So lastly, You will need to master the skill of honoring your body cues. This is how portion sizes were really meant to be determined for us as humans. As a society, we have gotten way too comfortable delegating our decisions with food externally. So, to an expert.
Google search article will be constantly searching for the right way to eat and the right answer when your body has Everything it needs now to tell you it knows exactly when to start and stop [00:13:00] eating and as Humans and how much our bodies are adapted to keeping us alive and safe Do we think that we were meant to endlessly research nutrition and recommendations online?
No, right? Those things can have its place, of course, but you are here because you want eating healthy and meeting those basic needs to feel easy and accessible for you. It is accessible when you establish that your own body has all of the wisdom you’ll ever need to know about what portion sizes are best for you.
Your hunger, it tells you when to start eating. It’s amazing. Your fullness, it tells you when to stop eating. Now, here’s a disclaimer that I want to give you so you know what to expect, because that’s important. When it comes to healing your eating behaviors, it will be necessary to also heal your body cues.
So if you have a tendency to overeat or emotionally eat, which is okay, it’s normal, then it’s going to be a bit tougher to Honor your body cues. So if you’re finding that you don’t tend to be hungry until you [00:14:00] feel starving or you don’t tend to feel full until you’re stuffed, then that just means your body cues are a bit out of whack because the emotional eating is occurring and those can be healed.
There is a process for that. And that comes from deeper emotional regulation work like I described. So if that is work you want to do so it can all feel a bit easier, then join us inside Own Your Eating Habits. You’re going to get exactly what you need to do that. I just want you to know that so you’re not thinking anything is wrong if your cues feel off.
I hope that makes sense. So those are the three areas you will want to focus on to create a natural experience of portion control. What I want you to take away from this episode is that you can create an experience of proper portion sizes with food. That feels natural to you. You don’t have to measure, track, or micromanage your plate if you do not want to.
There is no right or wrong with healthy eating. You get to decide the experience of healthy eating that you want to have. And I know many of you are here because you want a [00:15:00] different way. By focusing on the internal work, you will naturally find yourself eating proper portion sizes, whereas if you focus on the external knowledge to eat proper portion sizes, you You won’t learn more about yourself as an eater and you relinquish that internal control.
All right. Thank you so much for being here. I cannot wait to support you and connect with you soon in my upcoming workshop, how to eat healthy consistently. Again, go to Katrentis. com forward slash workshop to reserve that spot. It is completely free. All right. I will talk to you next week.
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Kat Rentas, Healthy Eating Coach
Hey there! I'm Kat Rentas. I’m a certified life and health coach for women who believes that eating healthy should feel simple and sustainable. I teach hundreds of high-performing women to change their eating habits without the overwhelm. Want to change your eating habits in a way that is aligned with your needs, preferences, and goals? You’re in the right place. You can read my full story here.
