Tips for keeping portion sizes sleeve-friendly long term

Portion size is one of the keys to maximising your weight loss and keeping it off in the long term. The further away from surgery the easier it is to forget what portions were like in the beginning and slip back into old habits like grazing throughout the day. Try these tips and tricks so that your portions stay in control long term. 

What should portions be after sleeve gastrectomy?

Research tells us long term after a sleeve, the average person tends to eat 800-1200 calories. In terms of portions, ideally each day will comprise of 3 main meals of about 1 cup portion with smaller snacks between if hungry. Portions may vary based on activity levels, height and weight and also vary between meals depending on what the food is. For example, you may be able to eat 1.5 cups of a leafy salad or only ½ cup to ¾ cup of something more solid like a steak.  

But my portions are bigger than that!

Long term you may find you can eat more than this 1 cup meal. If this is the case, I like to look at why my clients are eating more. For example:

• Are you eating more because the foods you are choosing is much easier to eat (for example, slider foods like yoghurt, ice cream or chips)
• Are you eating more because you are taking a long time to eat? If you are taking a really long time to eat (more than 30mins), you are probably eating more than you need as the beginning mouthfuls are leaving the stomach.
• Are you eating more because you are eating too fast? If you are taking less than 20mins to eat a meal then you will end up eating more than you need as well because your stomach doesn’t have the chance to tell your brain that it’s full. 
• Are you eating more because you are physically hungry and not feeling any resitrction anymore? Perhaps your sleeve isn’t working as well as it was, which would warrant a chat with your team.

So, what should I do to get my portions under control?

Firstly, think about how you feel after your meal. Do you feel uncomfortable? Are you still getting portion restriction? If you eat a good quality meal like a piece of steak and vegetables are you still getting that full feeling after about a cup of food? If not, then it’s worth discussing with your surgeon, particularly if you are 3-4+ years out to see if there is a mechanical reason for this lack of fullness.

If you are still getting restriction with a good quality meal when you eat slowly, try these tips to keep your portions at bay:

1. Try being more mindful around when, what and how you are eating. Make sure you go back to basics, eating slowly, chewing your food, taking small mouthfuls, making sure you aren’t eating when you are distracted and you are paying attention so you get satiety from your meal.
2.  Eat off small plates, small bowls and use small cutlery. That way you wont put more than you need on your plate and it will still trick your eye into thinking it is a full plate (it’s just a really small one!) 
3. Tell yourself you can go back for more if you feel like it afterwards. Doing this tends to lead us to put a smaller amount of food on our plate to start with without feeling deprived.
4. Do an awareness exercise – go back and measure your portions again. Rather than eating out of a large packet if you are having a snack, put that snack into ¼ cup or ½ cup to see what it looks like. If you are serving yourself a bowl of casserole put it in a 1 cup measure just to remind yourself what 1 cup of food looks like . Do that for a few days just to see if your portions have accidentally crept up over time without you realising. 
5.  Serve your own meals. You need to be able to put what you want in the right portions on your plate for you. If you put more food on your plate you are then more likely to push it to try to finish! 

I’d also love to hear from you – what tricks do you use to keep your portions in check? Comment below!