Overblown Portions

My husband and I were in Memphis yesterday for Christmas shopping and of course, we had lunch at a restaurant.  We tried a new place, Swanky's Tacos and had a nice experience but I noticed a disturbing thing while there.  Swanky's is what I'd call an upscale fast food restaurant.  They serve a variety of Tex Mex food that is prepared using fresher, better ingredients than say, Taco Bell.  My husband and I ordered grilled fish, tacos for me and red snapper with a mango salsa for him.  The fish was cooked and out to us in about 10 minutes and was delicious.

However, you could also go through a line and order burritos in a bowl and pick out exactly what you wanted in them from meats, beans, cheese, lettuce, salsa, onions, etc.  The problem was the size of the bowl.  This seemed to be the most popular item as several customers in line with us ordered them.  By the time they got through the line, there was more than enough food in each bowl for two people.  There is a terrible problem with portion distortion going on here.  Unfortunately, I also noted that each person who ordered one of those bowls was overweight.

I've taken a picture of one of my mixing bowls that my husband and I agreed was close to the size of the restaurant bowls so you can get an idea of how much food these people were potentially consuming.

  Not the best photo example, but you can see that would be a lot of food if the bowl were approximately half full of meat, beans, cheese and salsa.  I've seen similar problems with portion sizes in all restaurants, not just Swanky's of course.  I'm just using this to point out how we allow ourselves to think it's ok to eat large amounts of food.  If you aren't an elite athlete who works out several hours a day, there is no way your body needs to consume huge piles of food several times a day.  Even athletes need to be careful what they consume to perform at their peak.  I think you'll find that you actually feel better when you eat less.  You won't feel as heavy, bloated and lethargic.  So treat your body better and think before you eat.