Pushing My Limits for Longevity: (Portion) Size Does Matter
I have been humming along for about a month now with my new longevity lifestyle. Nutrition and diet have been at the forefront followed by a pretty rigorous exercise regime (at least for me).
But as much as I have been focused on this, my weight loss seemed to have stalled. The good news is that it hasn’t gone up over the past week and a half but it also hasn’t come down. Now, I told myself that going into this lifestyle that weight loss wasn’t the primary goal – getting healthy was. However, I also realize that I am carrying excess weight and this is not a good thing.
Being overweight can pose a significant risk to our longevity.
In fact, it can even take years off our lives. Being moderately obese can reduce our lifespan by three years and being excessively obese can reduce our life expectancy by ten years. That’s a similar effect as a lifetime of smoking!
Not only is excess weight a longevity risk, as the Mayo Clinic shared, obesity is “...a medical problem that increases the risk of many other diseases and health problems. These can include heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver disease, sleep apnea and certain cancers.”.
So yes, as much as I say I’m not focused on the scale, I do know I need to drop some weight.
I spoke with my Fitness Coach, Shannon Bond about this and why my weight loss efforts may have stalled. One area that he asked me about was the portion sizes I was eating.
He confirmed that when it comes to food portions – size really does matter.
He then asked me if I was weighing and measuring everything I was eating and I had to confess that I wasn’t. I was “eyeballing” the quantities I was consuming. He told me that this is where many people fail. The quantities that they believe they are eating are actually much larger than they realize which can thwart people’s weight loss efforts.
I then dragged out my scale and measuring cups and spoons and started measuring and weighing my food. Fortunately, it turns out my “eyeballing” of quantities wasn’t too far off but did need a little tightening up. I was taking some liberties in leaning more to the larger size than the smaller.
Even the potato size I was eating needed to be checked. I discovered that a small potato has about 120 calories compared to a large potato which can be more than double that at 281 calories.
So, with renewed vigor I have increased my attention to portion size. As well, I have also increased my focus on the types of foods I’m eating. But more on that in a future update.
Also, in my research I discovered this video interesting on how we can “miss the mark” when it comes to portion sizes and that reducing the size of our plates can also make a difference.
Please note, this information is provided for informational purposes only. You should always consult your healthcare professional regarding your personal situation.
Interested in reading more about my longevity lifestyle experiences so far?
About the Author
Susan Williams is the Founder of Booming Encore - a digital media hub dedicated to providing people with information and inspiration to create and live their very best encore in later life. Susan is also the co-author of the book, Retirement Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose? and contributor to Longevity Lifestyle by Design. Susan frequently writes and publicly speaks about retirement, aging and longevity.
