How did i get so FAT?

This is the mother of all questions. One which you ponder for so long you actually gain weight before answering. As your counting the many chins in a facebook photo a ‘friend’ has tagged you in, half drunk on a night out, where she looks perfect in each one and you know she knows the selfie rules…. (From above woman, from ABOVE. And filter the crap out of it). When you look at yet another facebook hatred tagging massacre and see that your upper arm is wider than your face (why am I friends with these people?) but the worst is when child3, the eight year old twinkle in your eye, pokes your tummy and laughs. Its these times when I ask myself how did i get so FAT?

 

Usually there is no significant moment where you suddenly gained a stone or three, rather a time when you put on a dress, last minute, for a rare night out and found the damn thing had shrunk! There’s no way the zip is going up, and as your looking in the mirror, dress scrunched up around your waist for the final attempt at the zip, all hot and sweaty, you think ‘when did that happen?’ there’s nothing else to wear as your wardrobe is full of black leggings (approx 20 pairs, but only three without a hole in the thigh seam) and long vest tops, which are mini dress length but are vital to a size 16 wardrobe as any other length ‘cuts at the widest area’ (thank you Trinny and Susannah). You now have no clothes that fit but your keeping the size 10’s, 12’s and 14’s you know, just incase. So how did I get so FAT? Well after a very long time and some deep soul searching (I had a free afternoon) I think I have finally found the answer.

 

It was such a ‘eureka’ moment…this will blow your mind… drum roll please…

 

No, seriously, I had ate my way here. Sooo anti climatic but its true. Although my diet hasn’t really changed my portion sizes have, very dramatically actually and at such a slow rate over the years I hadn’t even noticed. Take plates for example, I had the usual set as a wedding gift, normal sized dinner plates with side plates and cereal bowls. I always ate my breakfast (toast) or lunch (ham salad sandwich) on those tiny (yet normal sized) side plates. Over the years we bought massive dinner plates, for Sunday roasts to begin with, and larger bowls, Today I use those small dinner plates as my side plate, and pasta sized bowls for cereal! Those huge dinner plates that used to look ridiculous are now normal standard sized dinner portions, and don’t get me started on share sized packets of crisps or chocolate! I would buy a large packet of magic stars and then young child1 and child2 plus mummy would eat them as a treat, today I will buy a packet (which now look quite small) and eat them in one sitting without a second thought.

Lets look at kids leftovers, I would eat half a fish finger rather than throw it away, now (out of habit) I’m eating a full slice of pizza from each plate, that’s nearly half a pizza on top of what I have ate already! I would never go out for a coffee when the kids were young, let alone lunch. And now I cant have a coffee out without a slice of cake (M & S Victoria sponge is heaven). So that’s it in a nutshell, portion size has killed my dress size.

When you read about portion control you never think that you are eating too much, or maybe only slightly more that you should, but look again, really take the time to look and you might find this is the problem. For many of us we are not binge eating or filling up on junk but have slowly started to eat more and more without realising it.

 

Now I hold the holy grail of truth I can sip its knowledge (In a tumbler not a pint glass) and start to shrink my portions. Undo the 15 years of habit and start to see results without even changing what goes on my plate yet. Baby steps!