Here here!! Yes I posted something in regards to portions a while back and I had the same issues you did as I was growing up -- Italian here. For us eating was part of our culture and especially showing respect and enjoyment for finishing all that was on your plate.

When I started LC I was making huge salads and took the "eat liberal amounts of these meats" to heart. At the beginning I was certainly having problems and not losing weight and the minute I controlled my portions, the lbs came off. What's interesting though is that if I even do a minute amount of exercise such as walking or shopping or anything that keeps me moderately active in the evenings... I noticed that I can go ahead and eat larger portions and still lose weight. The second I resort to the couch for movies or football or video games with friends... bahhh I have to curb the amounts... sigh.

For now I really enjoy that small feeling of "hunger" I sometimes still feel after a meal. It's not annoying but just a reminder of how I have finished my meal, I enjoyed it but I am not overly stuffed.

I remember an episode of Oprah (OMG I watched her show like 3 times ok!!) and she was talking about diet. She mentioned that her 1000$ a day diet specialist had always recommended that it's a great idea to come out of a meal feeling not full but rather satisfied. Also that when bedtime came that the small shallow feeling in the tummy that it was almost empty or at least not still full from a recent meal was a good indication that you were doing things right and that you were not overeating.

How many of us have made meals where we think we are going to eat soooo much and make soooo much. Then after about half the plate we could "in theory" stop as we feel pretty full but we just keep eating till we finished what's on our plate. Yeah nasty.

My sister once told me that the best diet is the Catholic diet. I expressed interest and said I had never heard of it. She then retorted by says that it simply says to eat half of what you think you were going to eat… in a sense as if you were giving the rest to the poor or a stranger or your annoying dog I guess. Well simple enough eh?


Great job... take care

Claudius