Portion size and prettiness

I've been eating a fruit parfait and/or a pita salad every day now :) I forgot how much I really love fruit and veggies. Now, I haven't lost a single pound, but I am feeling a bit better overall.

The one thing I think I need to watch is my portion size. I brought my fruit parfait to work and one girl commented on how healthy it was. Her tone of voice wasn't exactly kind or supportive, but it wasn't terribly nasty either. After her comment I looked down and saw that my fruit bowl was about three cups. How much is a portion? Maybe a cup. I went out that day and bought smaller containers to fill so I wouldn't eat as much.

That's a funny thing, the size of a container. I used to have Rice Krispies with fruit on top for breakfast. I liked it so much that I kept increasing the amount in my bowl until I couldn't fit any more. The bowl is about three cups as well. Now I'm doing the same thing with my parfaits, and yes, even the pita salads. I've been packing them so full they burst apart. I must try to remember that I don't need that much food at one sitting. There is no need to fill myself to the point of bursting or aching.

When I wondered how much a portion was for the Kashi cereal I actually measured it out and put it in a dessert bowl. The dessert bowl fit the portion perfectly at one cup. I really think if I used a larger plate I would eat more as well. Isn't it strange that even though I know better I don't listen to my own body, instead I eat whatever is on the dish in front of me. Restaurants are terrible for giving huge plates of food and it's so hard to stop eating after one portion size is done.

I was cleaning out my photo album today as well and looking at old pictures of myself. I was thin and felt fat. Even my boys saw the photos and asked when I got fat because I used to be thin. My mom, too. She was my size around my age and now she weighs somewhere around 300 lbs! In the photos I hid my body as much as possible in order to be invisible. I wanted so much to look pretty and wear pretty things, but I felt ugly so I wore jeans and button-down untucked shirts with the sleeves rolled up. My hair was the same, parted on the left and all one length. A couple of times it was layered, but mostly a blunt cut. My sisters constantly kept changing their hair and here I was looking the same year after year. It was difficult to sort the photos by date because I didn't change my appearance at all. I had to go by old/new glasses, how soft my jawline was, whether or not I had breasts and what other people looked like in the photo.

In many photos I'd have a nice sweater on (usually that I received as a gift) with sweatpants or jeans. I wanted to wear skirts but felt like I wasn't allowed to look good. I must look ugly all the time. Where did I get that idea? Do I still carry it with me? Well, I don't wear skirts, I'm overweight and I don't feel like I should wear pretty things. What do I usually wear? Jeans and a t-shirt. Long or short sleeved depending on the weather. Sweats if I'm at home. So...a uniform. Just like when I was 8-17 yrs. old. I started wearing skirts again in high school, but stopped after I had my first son. I remember one damaging thought I had when my first son was still a baby. We were pulling up to a car show in the summer, there was a woman with her man and two children. She was wearing a white top and skirt. Her skirt blew up in the wind a bit showing me her white thong. I thought "moms shouldn't dress like that". I really thought moms were not allowed to wear a thong, skirt or sexy clothes. Where on Earth did I get that idea? And why is it so damn difficult to just change? If I want to wear something pretty, why don't I just put it on?