I noticed that when I cook dark meat chicken, and use the cajun rub, I inevitably overeat. One thought is that the rub is addictively salty and spicey.
I wanted to really understand the quantities though. When I go to a steakhouse, often a queen cut (6-8oz) along with a salad and vegetable is more than enough. How much meat was on one of these chicken leg/thigh combinations?
Weighing the meat after cooking it, and then again after I had consumed the edible portions, the number I came up with was 6.6oz per leg/thigh combination.
So... If I eat an entire package in one sitting, I'm eating 26oz of meat. Chicken is a tiny bit less calorie dense than beef, say by a factor of .85, giving beef equivalent of 22oz. That's a pretty big steak, but maybe absent the salad and vegetable it's not so out of range.
I'm pretty consistantly having a problem with ready-to-eat food hanging out in the refrigerator. Ingredients that I have to cook are not a problem, but I feel like I'm eating the leftovers just because of the immediate availability. It is true that I attribute a lot of the early weight loss success to eating out nearly all the time, and not having food ready at home.
This is a good crutch, but I've started to cook for myself. The answer is probably be more judicous with that cajun rub that I like so much.
-edit:
My current technique is to break the pack of chicken into two parts. I got these really easy to handle gallon-sized bags (I hate dealing with plastic wrap and ziplocks), and I just put half of the raw chicken in the freezer.
When I need it I just put it on a pan in the fridge, and it defrosts overnight. I do the same thing with breakfast pattys.
