Breakfast Bowls

The other morning, I glanced at the back of my granola packet, and was stopped short by the image on it.  It showed a bowl heaped high with cereal, and yet I'd just been thinking how quickly I got through the packet, and wondering exactly how much I was eating.  


So, I weighed it, and found I was eating more than twice the recommended "portion".  But it didn't look like I was eating that much…

Getting out my camera and my scales, here's how it goes…  Here's my regular breakfast bowl, with my regular amount of fruit:

And here is the smallest bowl I have in my cupboard, that I rarely use, because it's so small:

You can see their relative sizes:

And here is a "portion" of granola in the small bowl:

This is how much I actually tend to eat, and have done every day while I've lost 8 kilos (seventeen and a half pounds) over the course of 4 months:

So, this is how my actual breakfast looks!  

It's far more than a "portion", but I feel healthy and strong, slim and toned.  I work out every morning, and I'm breastfeeding.  Maybe at some point I will have to change how much I eat, but for the moment I feel kind of angry at the manufacturers.  Firstly, because of their extremely misleading packaging, and secondly because of their ridiculously small "portion" size.

Sweet Reminder

Last week, I had one evening where I ate about 9 dates after dinner, as well as some nuts.  I felt sick afterwards.  The next night, I probably ate about the same total weight of snacks, but it was mainly nuts with just 2 dates.  I felt fine.  A good reminder that sugar is nauseating in excess, even in this very natural form.

I'm using this as a reminder to myself - it's better to eat non-sweet things, even as treats.  Not just in terms of weight, but in terms of how I feel in myself!

It also emphasises for me why I don't want to follow cookbooks like Deliciously Ella.  She's still working on the basis of making yourself sweet treats and finding "substitutes" for unhealthy things.  I don't want to "allow myself" sweet treats if they're going to make me feel ill in the long run, and hide the fact that really I just shouldn't be overdoing the sugar, no matter what the source.  I mean, I just hopped over there, and she's touting a "healthy" version of salted vanilla almond butter cup chocolates!