To think my portion was too large (photo)?

[Ribrabrob]

I’m living a bit ‘on the road’ at the moment (essential) and relying on eating out - trying to be as healthy as I can as I’m trying (!) to lose weight.

I have attached a photo of tonight’s evening meal, my only meal of the day plus a few snacks. My photo isn’t the best unfortunately but it was a bowl of spicy rice and a bowl of bean stew/soup (I’m vegetarian).

Aibu to think I had too much? Would you have eaten all of it? Unfortunately through years of dieting and binge eating I have lost sight of what a normal portion of food is and how ‘normal’ people eat.

Ps i appreciate it doesn’t look very nice but it was actually quite tasty!

It's basically vegetables and water, so no, not too big!

This is what I was going to say, too. And vegetables are just water packaged in fibre with a seasoning of vitamins. Quite a lot of rice, but it's your only meal of the day, so enjoy it!

(FWIW, I think it looks delicious!)

I’d say the stew is fine but would probably have half the rice with it if I was serving it. Although if you’ve not had anything else I don’t think it would have been a problem. Hard to tell from the picture though.

I've found a lot of places just give you more veggie stuff as a portion rather than reduce the price compared to the meat ones. I wouldn't say that because of what it is that if someone ate it it would be wildly unhealthy; but it does seem a lot of food for one meal.

That's a lot. Put your hand into a fist: that's about the size of your stomach. We really don't need to eat as much as we often do.

I think that's the size of a toddlers stomach according to Google an adult stomach is 6 by 12 inches empty.
I think fine to eat all of it. I would.

It would be a HUGE amount for me, but I eat like a bird and am very dainty and feminine.

In all seriousness OP, I dont think anyone can judge whether that is a 'good' portion size for you without knowing what else you've eaten, your size, your activity levels, age etc.

That's enough for two adults IMO

It's too much as a portion in one go yes. If it's the only thing you ate all day, fair enough. But if each meal on a normal day is the same portion and you have 3, then no that's not good.

People eat far too big a portions these days.

No way could I eat all of that... TWO huge platefuls...yikes.
As to the 'brown' nature, though...I has a Spanish bean stew that looked similar..and tasted lovely!
I'm a nibbler though...can't eat much in one sitting.

Oh goodness OP you aren't supposed to ask about serving sizes on here. This is the place where a chicken does a family for a crazy amount of days & people live on 1 A4 sheet of paper for a month.

Can you have ketchup with that paper? 😁

Of course you can - but you will have to make the paper last for two months if you do

Difficult to tell from the photo. I can't imagine it has a lot of calories or fat, mind, and loads of fibre. If it's 600 cals or so it should be fine as the only meal of the day.

This is a good guide (sorry about the source...)

www.thesun.ie/living/1003853/a-fist-of-pasta-and-a-fingertip-of-butter-how-your-hand-reveals-the-perfect-portion-size-and-how-much-youre-overeating/

Oh gosh waaaay too much for me. I'd have two snorts of a rivata crumb and 5ml of orange juice every other day.

If you are eating out, the place has to cater to everyone from the mumsnet competitive undereaters to 6ft+ men with manual jobs. They are likely to err towards larger portions (and bulk up with cheap carbs) as people are less likely to go back if they go home hungry than if they left a bit on the plate.

I am not sure that this is entirely about that specific meal though. We can’t really tell how big it is but it does look like a sizeable potion. This is fine, however, if you have had a busy and active day with little else to eat.

What I am some other posters and nudging towards I can see is why you are eating in this way. With a history of disordered eating, restricting to one meal a day is quite likely to lead to serving yourself more food than you need and then feeling guilty and unhappy when you have eaten it all.

Do you feel satisfied and comfortable now? Not stuffed and sleepy but full.

If the one meal a day is not a choice but more a factor of your work, I might be inclined to serve a small portion at a time. So a spoon full of each thing, eat it and then decide if you are still hungry before serving more.

It also looks very tasty!

Difficult to say because of scale.but I would say it’s the snacking you would be worrying about.

I'm intrigued, what do you mean about "being on the road"?
Are you homeless? or sofa surfing?
Hope you are OK OP?

Personally I would have had the bean soup without the rice, it looks a lot.

Personally I think that’s a massive portion of rice for one person. Which is fine, but it’s probably over the recommended serving size.

It would probably be better for your metabolism if you ate smaller meals throughout the day instead of a couple of snacks and a large meal once per day

Soup looks fine, rice is waaaaay too much. I’d only eat 1/4 of that and be stuffed.

I'm short and skinny and that looks largish but manageable, maybe a bit too much rice, and not enough to be your only meal of the day. Eating once a day doesn't sound fun.

That’s a very large carb portion. 1/3 of it would have been fine

Looks a double portion to me.

That's far too much. Half of each bowl at least, much less of rice even for one main meal.
However, I would have a very small snack meal at some other point in the day as well...I only eat two meals a day myself.
If you eat one meal a day but make that a huge meal, you will keep your stomach very stretched, expecting large amounts of food. Small portions get your stomach to accept smaller amounts and then feel full after a while, and helps with dieting.

Looks lovely! I’d eat all the stew and half of the rice as my meal if the day.