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Portion Control for Effective Weight Loss

Posted by Christine D. Kris in Weight loss on 12 11th, 2009 | no responses

I sensed the waitress groan as she set the loaded oversized dinner plate in front of me. My plate was piled high with at least four adult servings of pasta. We’d already eaten salad and breadsticks. Noticing all the other overweight customers surrounding me, the truth..hit me between the eyes.

Many people weigh too much because they just eat too much. They may even do it without realizing it. It is not a hormone problem, low thyroid, or any other disease. When people take in more calories than they use up, they gain weight.

We cannot be blamed for starting the oversized portion trend. But even though we did not start the problem, it can still be our problem.

Portion Size Matters!

1. Dinner plates today are bigger than in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I now use a luncheon or salad plate to get a better size proportion.

Cafe portions are huge these days. Consider eating off of the child’s menu or splitting dinner with a friend. One other tips that works is to split a meal into a to-go box before eating it. Then you can take half home for lunch the next day.

3. Take a mental picture of everyday items to get an idea of proper food portions.

A small baked potato is about the size of the inside of my palm.

A waffle or pancake portion is about the size of a cd.

a medium bagel is about the size of a hockey puck.

A small muffin is about the size of a tennis ball.

Consider cheese. A serving is about 1 oz., and not a pound.

Three ounces of meet are usually the size of a deck of playing cards.

Your rice serving should fit in a cupcake cup.

1 serving of fruit or veggies is about the size of a tennis ball. Actually, I think it is usually ok to overeat fruit and vegetables.

No one diet plan seems to work for everybody. Some dieters have lost weight with high fiber diets, while high protein and low carbs work for others. Almost everybody benefits from adding more high water content food like soup, salad, and fruit.

5. Positive Choices: We eat too much sugar, salt, unhealthy fat, and processed foods. We need to read labels and choose foods with ingredients we recognize (and can pronounce). Whole grains, organic food, natural ingredients are better for us and better to us.

We can eat less, eat healthy, and live better with every meal choice we make. I am losing weight and I feel more energized just by making these small, consistant diet changes.

Life just doesn’t have to be that complicated

Portion Control – Take some simple steps to eat better. You can lose weight with some easy diet tips!