Today I had another one of those very dreary, sobering realizations. About every two weeks or so I head over to the Giant next to my office to stock up on those frozen, prepackaged meal in a box things…usually one brand or another is on sale five for $10 (God knows what they put in these things) and I get really happy, load up my shopping basket and head over to the self checkout registers.
Today after microwaving one of my prepackaged meals I decided to get a little fancy. Usually I just eat them right out of the plastic bowl they come in, but not today. Today I decided to transfer my frozen, artificially flavored, genetically altered meal onto a ceramic bowl for a more aesthetic dining experience. However, this turned out to be a mistake. It may have looked like a decent enough amount of food in the original container, but when transferred to a regular bowl, it dawned on me that my frozen lunch is low-calorie/low fat because it consists of very little food. Nearly invisible amounts, in fact. When you’re dealing with 10 grams of food, it’s hard to pack all that many calories and fat. In fact, it’s quite amazing they can even pack 300 calories into a meal the size of your fist. You see, these frozen meals come in bowls that are about one inch deep. Real-life bowls are like three or four inches deep. My “Asian Fusion Something or Other” was a very sad sight in a regular ceramic bowl, as one might expect of a meal that consists of three small dumplings, a quarter cup of rice and a light sprinkling of peas and carrots.
The sad case of the miniscule meal. Courtesy of scrapbookoftruth.com.
I always knew these meals were small, but only a real-life bowl could bring me to this sobering realization: If my Lean Cuisine or Smart One or whatever it was is any indication of what a serving size is, I’m eating the equivalent of approximately three or four meals at dinner everyday. No wonder I’m not losing any weight despite all my walking.
Categories: Daily Life, Me, Me, Me, Observations, Random
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You’re right, those things have barely enough food in there for a normal human to subsist. I used to eat those things and wonder why I was still ravenous. A normal human needs to eat at least 1500 calories/day, and those have 300 or fewer calories. Unless you’re eating 5 or 6 small, evenly spaced meals throughout the day, you will probably need to eat a bigger dinner. I used to have some serious issues around eating, but what really helped me with my relationship with food is a great book: “Intuitive Eating” (http://amzn.com/0312321236). I recommend it without reservation.
I will have to check it out. Thanks Lily!