Accurate Portions: BMI = 26.7

Even though my healthy eating habits are well established, I still take the time to accurately measure my portions for each meal. It’s easy to overlook a little extra pasta sauce or oversized portion of pasta when I’m hungry.

I weigh my pasta when it is dry to get the most accurate portion possible. If you weigh your pasta after cooking, you might find that you have left-overs, and then you might find yourself eating those leftovers rather than storing them for another meal. Lately I’ve been increasing my pasta portions – for reasons that I will be discussing in a future post.

I measure my vegetable portions to ensure I’m getting all the servings recommended by the Canada Food Guide. I rely on counting servings more than I do on counting calories.

I usually use a scale for recording and recreating my recipes – a habit that I picked up at work. Scales are the best way to measure when baking, although I must admit I don’t do much baking anymore.

Switching Habits: BMI = 26.7

If you have a bad habit that you would like to curb, try sugar-free gum. I’ve recently begun trying to cut down on my cigarette habit and I’ve found sugar-free gum helps a lot. I think it might have helped a lot when I was trying to break my bad habit of snacking.

I also chew gum when I’m around a lot of finger food. Sliced meats, cheese, pickles and crackers are still very temping to me but I’ve found that chewing gum keeps my cravings in check.

An Easy Food Diary: BMI = 26.7

If you are having trouble figuring out why you keep gaining weight, then try starting a food diary. If you have a smart phone or a tablet, then it only takes a moment to grab a photo of each meal or snack.

How much cheese are you adding to your pasta? Do you really care to remember?

If you grab a bag of snack food or a yogurt cup, take a photo of the nutritional information label to remind yourself later.

At the end of the day you can go back and verify whether you’ve had all your servings of fruits/veggies and grains, and whether or not you’ve overdone it on protein-rich foods and/or snack foods.