Bulking it up

I am very easily entertained. I enjoy watching and reading what people eat, seeing grocery hauls or reviewing people's meal plans. I don't follow any one plan but I find ideas I may want to try or products I'm curious about. So obviously, I'm a sucker for " what I ate Wednesday's". My disclaimer would be, that I enjoy these posts when they don't seem like a thinly veiled infomercial fishing for referrals for a product. I can find enough of those on my own tyvm ;) I do respect when someone can be honest about being sent a product, compensated and whatever all that entails. But I digress....
Of course, I missed Wednesday and this is not really a post about what I have eaten during the day. This is more of a tip that I have been using and that seems to be helping in  keeping me satisfied longer without adding too many calories.
You see as a person who has issues with food and binges, I know that one of the first things that seem hard when cutting back is how "little" food it seems it will be when compared to the disproportionate amounts one can binge on. This is a problem that had several components and in order to be solved there have been many things I have done.
First and foremost what I have had to do,was to try to learn about portion sizes and to follow them. I wrote about my "health weapons" here where a scale and measuring cups have become my good allies. Another thing I do is "deciding, discovering and distracting" as I mentioned here. The latest thing I have been trying is what I call the "bulking up".
The "bulking up" is my attempt at bulking up my meals by using greens in order to add extra fiber and bulk without adding too many calories. When I first started doing this, I was not sold. I am lucky to love most veggies and herbs. But some like the trendy kale and chard were new to me. I love a good deal, and these options I found seemed a fairly good one. After buying the first time wondering if I'd end up tossing them I found that it didn't take much time for me to really enjoy them.
I decided early on that I would not make or force myself during this journey to eat or like things that I simply do not care for. Meaning I hate eggplant but will not eating eggplant sabotage my journey? no, there's lots of options you just have to be open to trying. The way I saw it, I knew I was going to have a hard enough eating better and having a calorie budget. So at least I had to make choices I enjoyed in order to be able to continue doing this. So bulking up my meals with greens was a feasible choice for me.
I love Sam's Club and Costco. We go just about every weekend. Do I need to go every weekend? no, but I enjoy walking up and down those aisles. Hey! some people go to the movies every week, I go to Sam's Club and Costco lol ( how lame do I sound?). Anywho, one of the things that I have been loving lately have come from Sam's and they are worth their $5 and $6 respectively haha. These are what I have found at those places, but the beauty of America is that there are many brands, products and alternatives to choose from. This is just what I have used.

So this is what my bulking up entails. I will add either baby spinach and/or power greens to just about everything. If I am having pasta at night, Ill use a base of greens at the bottom and cut my sauce in half. If I am making myself a wrap, a cup or so of greens bulk it up. I have even been enjoying a handful of greens on top of my rice cakes spread with hummus. Throwing a serving on two in my soup before serving it works pretty good as well. Having an omelet for breakfast or dinner ? yes! lets add some more of them greens. A smoothie you say? ok ! lets add some pretty green color.... you can see where I am going with this. The greens make for a bigger volume which helps my still not fully trained brain and pleases my eyes. I feel like I get more bang for my calorie buck. It also increases my fiber consumption (we know why that is important don't we?) and hey, there has got to be some benefit when it comes to vitamins and the such. So far I can't see any cons to this..unless I start turning green!... And  If i do, I promise pictures will follow ;)
So this may or may not be something you would do but I am always open to hearing new tips and ideas. I leave you with a few visuals of my bulking it up. Until next time!

                  

P.s. I have these pictures from using the Pact app I mentioned before. Btw quick update on that! I cashed in my first $20 woohoo!