Mr. Bento: My Portion Control Savior?

I have really struggled the entire month of August with my eating. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "struggled" here as I feel this implies that I was actually making an effort to eat well but found it difficult. Truth be told, I wasn't even trying. I pretty much soothed every emotional bump and bruise this month with food and lots of it. And I soon found myself overeating even without an emotional impetus. Eating crap quickly became my daily habit, especially when I was hitting the fast food joints everday for lunch and sometimes for dinner too.

Today that changed because yesterday my Mr. Bento lunch jar arrived.

A friend of mine told me about Mr. Bento and I decided to order one to see if it would help kickstart me into packing healthy lunches again. What do you know? It worked! I was really excited last evening to try and put together a healthy lunch to pack in Mr. Bento. Even though one of the reasons I bought it was to help with portion control, at first I thought it seemed small and that any lunch packed in it would never satisfy me. I was wrong as I ended up with a lunch so filling I had to save some over to eat as a mid-afternoon snack. It was nice to enjoy a fresh and healthy lunch today. I ended up feeling nourished and sastified rather than sick, greasy, and bloated.

Just to give you an idea of what my Mr. Bento was able to accomodate, my lunch today included:

• turkey rollups made with a whole wheat tortilla, roasted turkey, Laughing Cow cheese, greens, and a tiny splash of Newman's Own oil & vinegar dressing
• carrots and cucumbers with a dab of hummus for dipping
• yogurt with fresh blackberries
• a handful of walnuts and almonds

I am learning that Mr. Bento is very big in some circles as I was able to find a flickr group dedicated to presenting their Mr. Bento lunches. It's been fun checking out the pictures to get ideas and inspiration for my own lunches.

PS

Don't forget I am going private at 9PM tonight. If you haven't emailed me yet have access to my private blog please do so soon. I would prefer my blog to be public and I hope to go public again in the future. For right now, I feel best taking it private.