1st question (of many I suspect) THE PORTION SIZE PUZZLE!

As a few of you know I have had to join RTM early (GP advice) so here I am on day 3 and seem to be on an even keel, hooray!

Now I know this question has been asked a zillion times and we are supposed to be figuring portion sizes out for ourselves but would really appreciate a few words of wisdom. I understand there is some information on portion sizes on the management website but I've not able to get on it yet and have been told it can take a week or so?

So .... I have read through the threads and it seems the protein portion size we should be having is 100g, is that right? Its just that a couple of other threads have suggested it should be more and does the portion size increase as you get further down the line or stay the same?

I had just under 100g of king prawns on day 1 and just over 100g of chicken breast on day 2, and just looking at the king prawns the calories in that 100g were 75. where as my pack would have been 125 .... so I was under that day, is that ok?

Today I am allowed salad, yippeee so thought I would have a tuna salad so the tin I have (drained) is 139g so I'm thinking I will just have the 100g ?

I guess what I really need to know is should I be looking a calories rather than portion sizes .... think perhaps I should?

Sorry for the rambling .... not really stressed about it at all but am just a little bit of a control freak and starting to feel a touch out of control.

x

I'm a bit more of a guesser!

I'm sure Sean and FT will answer your questions later.
Our LLC said it should be approx 100g 4oz or a piece of meat/fish the size of your palm. Rough guide only.
I know BL was counting calories pretty strictly and allowing for calories used in exercise too. There are webites that do the calculations for you. Penty of help available so don't panic!

Hi Susianna and welcome aboard good ship RTM

100g of protein is the recommended amount. There is no mention of increasing the portion sizes in the RTM books so the logical conclusion is that it stays the same throughout. HOWEVER, other than days 1 and 2 I've paid that lip service and gone for what 'looks' like a reasonably small portion when cooking for myself.

re the Tuna, day 3 or 4 I had tuna salad and had the whole tin. No worries, no problems, no regrets lol.

In fact most meals I now average about 120 - 150g protein (Prawns come in 140g packs etc and there's no way I'm going to allow myself to get so hung up on food I start to measure it out). I'm the same with salad and other fruit/veg (now that I'm allowed).

I keep a daily tally of what I eat and any exercise on Food Focus - Permanent Weight Loss which is excellent and FREE!, and has been pretty much spot on with the weekly losses I've experienced. I don't know if I'll keep this up post RTM but I find it really educational at the moment. Where there's food that's not in the database you can add your own & there's other sites with data to help.

I'm really glad you're feeling better now & RTM is a very interesting time for all of us. Keep asking questions.

TTFN

Thanks for your replies, SB & Sean just keeping to the 100g at the moment and portion wise that seems fine.

Week 1 went well and lost 1.2 which is fine so happy with that.

Just a couple of questions .... now allowed snacks as started week 2, I'm sure I have read somewhere that we can have the Total 0% Greek Yoghurt, is that right?

.... and Sean I read in one of your threads that you are using curry paste to cook with ... am I allowed that in week 2, can only see curry powder but assume its the same thing really?

Thanks again .... really appreciate your help and advice!

x

Yup low fat yogurt allowed from week 2 I believe - have you looked at my food lists thread, it's on there I think.

Made the tzaziki week 2 so yougurt must be on the list.

re curry paste, it's not on any of the lists & I only started using it recently (very end of week 4), beforehand I stuck to curry powder and other spices. I thought I'd cheat as we had some in the house and I'm actively trying to 'bend' a few of the rules so I'm not so hung up on allowed or disallowed foods etc. My advice though would be to stick to the plan as far as possible for the first couple of weeks then as you find your feet, puch the boundaries slightly.

Glad it's still goig well for you.

Hi Susianna!! Welcome to the RTM!! I'm on the LLL RTM which is done in 4 weeks so can't really comment on what your book advises.

It is a fantastic time though, taste buds on overdrive and extreme excitement at the simplest of veg!!!

I do think though, re the portion sizes, that if I had a larger chicken breast one day, I'd have a smaller one the next etc, try and balance it out that way. I have not been to the letter with myself because I want to know I'm in control through choice.

You will soon relax into this and you must read Sean's recipes. HE SHOULD WRITE A BOOK!!!!!!

And my question to Sean is....... When you put yoghurt in with the chicken and some spices, how do you stop it curdling???

Thanks Sean, think I will stick to the curry powder then for now!

Hi FT, yes its going ok and I am sort of enjoying it but its very early days! I thought I would be thinking about food and what I was going to eat that day all the time and really look forward to eating it but I'm not really bothered which is a total change to how I used to be so I guess that's good?

With the Sean curry question, I would really love to know that too as the family are having a curry on Sat so want to be able to make my own! What would we do without Sean!!!

How are you finding LLL RTM?

Susi
x

LOL didn't realise I was writing an RTM receipe book, just trying to log my experiences but delighted you find the receipes useful

re yogurt, there are 2 options:
1. add at the very end to create thicker sauce, must make sure the pan is off the heat to do this and also still a risk of curdling.
2. Temper the yogurt first, basically this involves bringing the yogurt up to the same temperature as the curry by adding a little of the curry to the yogurt first, then assing a bit more then repeating until the yogurt is up to temperature. The full mixture can then be added back to the curry in the pan.

Hope this helps & enjoy the cooking

oooh yum! looking forward to my chicken curry on saturday night now!

x

Oooo!! I asked a friend and she said to put a teaspoon of flour in but that's for quite a bit of yoghurt. I should think we would be allowed to get away with a little sprinkling of flour.