Portion control, or limiting the amount of food we eat in one sitting, is one of the most effective ways to lose weight. We all know that if we just left a little more on our plates every time, the pounds would melt off, but for some reason we just don’t do it.
Here are a few tips that can help you meet your goal.
1- Use smaller plates and glasses- have you ever noticed how a child will often leave the dinner table with food on her plate? At some point in our lives, we have learned to override our internal cues for hunger and satiety and will typically eat everything on our plates. Switching from a large dinner plate to a salad plate can help you cut your calorie intake by 20%, which can mean big gains, or rather losses, in the weight loss battle.
2- Use portion controlled serving utensils - I love ice cream scoops- they make portioning so easy. Whether I want to make sure that I’m getting enough of a vegetable portion, or not too much of a starch, I can get the right portion every time.
3- Never eat out of the bag - when you want a snack, make sure you put your portion into a separate, appropriately sized container,and put the original container back in the pantry. This helps avoid eating the whole bag.
4- Portion snacks into bags immediately after purchase- also, when I get home from the grocery store with a bag of snacks, I often make the time right then to portion out the entire bag into reasonable snack-sized bags, eliminating any concerns of eating too much at one time. This is really helpful for keeping costs down with your children’s snacks too!
If large portions are your problem area, putting these four tips into practice could help you lose up to a pound a week, without “dieting” or depriving yourself!
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