Hi all,

I've recently been putting in a lot of effort in order to lose weight, especially now that I have a motivating factor of having a vision of the woman I want to be. I've basically completely cut out fast food and started making high fibre, high protein foods at home, mostly cut out unhealthy fats by swapping to a (mostly) vegan diet, made a habit of doing a weekly weigh-in to track my progress, and portioning food whenever possible.

I do a monthly workshop, and they're generous enough to provide lunch for the event. Last time lunch was provided, we each ordered our own individual meals, and then ate them during the meeting. Quick and easy, sure I can't calorie count, but I can order something I know will generally be within my limits for the day, and work around that.

However, this month they decided to change to group catering. The advantages of this to them was that it was cheaper, and they wanted to increase social interaction by having conversation over shared food. This was understandable, but despite the catering order supposedly being for ten people, and our group having nine people, the amount of leftover food was insane. An entire tray of rice, entire tray of potatoes, half tray of hummus, over half a tray of falafel, it went on.

I hate food waste, and if we didn't take the food home with us, it was going to end up in the garbage. I decided to take the tray of hummus and a tray of mixed foods, and brought them home. It was too much food, and I easily overate my caloric intake trying to eat it all before it started going bad and as such have likely screwed over my progress for the week.

How do I balance these things out? Freezing isn't really an option, and while I want to portion things out, the main issue is being able to get to those portions within a reasonable time frame. I don't even necessarily want to eat it myself if possible, but while I can give out falafels to the homeless with ease for example, it becomes a pain when it's food like rice, potatoes, or stuffed grape leaves where a plate is necessary.

What can I do to balance these two out? I want to prevent food waste, but I also want to be strict to my diet because I'm absolutely determined to get to the goal I want to achieve.