Understanding Meal Template with One Pot/Soups

[Nlstir]

Hello, I am having a little trouble understanding the meal template when it applies to recipes I make from the cookbook that are one pot meals or soups. For example, I made the chicken chowder on page 336 of the Whole30 guide book. What I am trying to understand is how to make sure that satisfies my meal template. If I serve myself up a portion I am not guaranteeing I get enough chicken in that portion to meat my 1-2 palm sizes of protein. Should I eat smaller portion of soup and then eat with it some protein salad  or just meat on a salad? Or is that too much? 

And then same thing goes for say the butternut squash soup. I know there is a "make it a meal" option to add protein to the soup. But if I am just eating the soup straight, do I count it as my side of vegetables and could eat say a salad with protein on top? Or just eat the soup?

I was really confident I was pairing the right things when I followed the 7 day meal plan for week 1. Now I just want to make sure I am not overeating or covering too much of one group and not another. 

Thank you for any advice or clarification. 

[SugarcubeOD]

The meal template is a helpful suggestion to make sure people are eating enough... when you're doing something like soup, you kind of have to wing it... for a chicken soup for instance, you want to sort of guesstimate when dishing up how much actual chicken you're getting... I usually jam as many veggies as possible into one pot meals so that I don't have to add any to the side but if you feel that it's not enough (like in chili for instance), serve it over cauli rice or zoodles or the like.

With the butternut squash soup, that would be a good serving of veggies but I"d probably still eat some sort of non starchy veggie (salad, roasted brussels) and then a protein along with it.

The best way to know going forward how to do it is to make note of what you ate and then how you felt 2, 3, 5 hours later... famished? Pretty Okay? Kind of like you should have had a bit more?  Add fat, protein and veggies to these until you get a formula that works for you personally and is a reasonable facsimile of the template... make sense?

[Nlstir]

12 hours ago, SugarcubeOD said:

The meal template is a helpful suggestion to make sure people are eating enough... when you're doing something like soup, you kind of have to wing it... for a chicken soup for instance, you want to sort of guesstimate when dishing up how much actual chicken you're getting... I usually jam as many veggies as possible into one pot meals so that I don't have to add any to the side but if you feel that it's not enough (like in chili for instance), serve it over cauli rice or zoodles or the like.

With the butternut squash soup, that would be a good serving of veggies but I"d probably still eat some sort of non starchy veggie (salad, roasted brussels) and then a protein along with it.

The best way to know going forward how to do it is to make note of what you ate and then how you felt 2, 3, 5 hours later... famished? Pretty Okay? Kind of like you should have had a bit more?  Add fat, protein and veggies to these until you get a formula that works for you personally and is a reasonable facsimile of the template... make sense?

Yes, that is very helpful, thank you. I guess I am just concerned, I do not want to eat too much! I have a stomach medical condition that I am already seeing AMAZING results from (on Day 15 today!!!). That, and eliminating the cravings and that relationship with food are the main reasons for me doing the Whole30. However, I would not hate losing some weight too and I want to make sure I am eating enough to keep me satisfied (so far it's been perfect - and i'm not snacking!) but also not eating too much which results in no weight loss. Any thoughts on that?

[SugarcubeOD]

It's extremely hard to overeat on whole foods.  They're naturally satiating (especiallyi fat) and because they're nutrient dense, your body will tell you when it's done.  The bigger concern is not eating enough on a Whole30.... this is not a weightloss diet and even thinking about hacking it to make sure you're eating slightly less than what your body is asking for is going to make the results a lot less... 

[Nlstir]

19 hours ago, SugarcubeOD said:

It's extremely hard to overeat on whole foods.  They're naturally satiating (especiallyi fat) and because they're nutrient dense, your body will tell you when it's done.  The bigger concern is not eating enough on a Whole30.... this is not a weightloss diet and even thinking about hacking it to make sure you're eating slightly less than what your body is asking for is going to make the results a lot less... 

Ok good, that makes me feel a lot better. I am definitely listening to my body and making sure I give it what it needs. I have been so enlightened by the healthy fats idea and feel so much better when adding things like unsweetened coconut (my newest love thanks to whole30) to my meals. I have never felt so satisfied for 4-5 hours like I do on this plan and not needing to snack at all has made me feel great. Some days I seem to need more food than others, but I understand that is normal, especially since it tends to fall around my more intense work out days. Thank you for entertaining all my questions, I really appreciate it! 

[Alaska Woman]

Tonight we had the chicken chowder from the recipe section in the Whole 30 book- yummy yummy. Now I'm wondering if a serving of these one pot meals provides everything called for in the meal template? I kind of assumed so, at least in this case, with the sweet potatoes and all the broccoli providing the veggies and the coconut milk providing the fat.

 

[ArtFossil]

While one pot meals provide delicious variety, I would always supplement them with extra vegetables on Whole30 and I'd be mindful of adding extra protein or fat if necessary.I would deconstruct the meal into its equivalent of palms, plates and thimble (from the template) and add as needed to make sure I was satisfied. 

[Alaska Woman]

Thanks- that makes sense. I think I was just being lazy. lol

[LisaZ]

I notice that most of the W30 cookbook recipes (and other recipes too) give a serving amount, and if there are 2 servings listed, you can just do the math and see how much protein, veggies, and fat that covers.

For instance, if a soup recipe called for a pound of meat, and you normally eat 1/3 to 1/2 pound of meat at a W30 meal, then you'd need to eat a full 1/3 to 1/2 of that soup recipe to get your protein in. If an egg frittata recipe calls for 8 eggs, and you normally eat 3-4 eggs at a meal, then you need to eat about 1/2 of that entire frittata to get your protein in. You can break that down with the vegetables and fat too.

Fat may be the main thing to watch out for, as the fat used in cooking is probably not enough. You could always add a handful or coconut or nuts, or an apple with almond butter, or something like that to the meal to get more fat.

[cristinamt]

Hmm... what about ghee? If I use 1-2 thumb sizes, does the serving amount still count if it's used to heat up a pan? Do I add extra?

[SugarcubeOD]

10 minutes ago, cristinamt said:

Hmm... what about ghee? If I use 1-2 thumb sizes, does the serving amount still count if it's used to heat up a pan? Do I add extra?

If you're eating the entire pan of food and you scraaaape out all the fat onto your plate and then eat it, then sure, that counts... but most of the time, the servings are split into multiples and people don't scrape out the pan, so the cooking fat rarely 'counts'.