Portion Control

If I had to guess, one of the top three problems in the weight loss fight is with portion control. I know I've read this somewhere that for the most part, people underestimate the amount of calories they eat by at least 20% (and I actually think that's pretty conservative).

This is a good article with some tips on how to control the portions of food that you eat. I found this interesting in the beginning part on the study that was conducted on cookbook recipes and how the amount of calories in the servings of food have steadily increased over the last number of decades:

The study covered cookbook recipes over the last several decades (with emphasis on recipes in The Joy of Cooking), and it was discovered that calorie counts have gone up dramatically as authors have increased portion sizes to conform to new cultural norms. Where the 1936 edition of the kitchen classic averaged 268 calories per serving, the most recent 2006 edition averaged 384 calories. Lower costs of food and larger plate sizes are theorized as part of the reason for the increase, but nutritionist Marion Nestle says that mainly it's just a reflection of people becoming accustomed to eating more and more overall.

Which is interesting because I was looking at my plates today and thinking about when I was growing up and it occurred to me that the plates I have now are quite a bit bigger than the ones that I remember having growing up.

Here's a summary from the article of how you can control the portion sizes of your meals:

1. Downsize the size of your plate.
2. After you get done cooking, immediately stash half of it away for leftovers for the following days.
3. Eat in one room, but leave the remainder of the uneaten food in another room so you don't get tempted to pick at it.
4. When out to eat, order off the kid's menu (but don't accept the crayons when the waitress/waiter offers them to you...).
5. When out to eat with others, order things that you can all share, and make sure it includes salad, a non-creamed soup, and a vegetable dish.
6. Learn how to estimate what the measured serving size is from the nutritional information part on the food container (in other words, if the ice cream container says a serving is only 200 calories for a half a cup...don't think a half a cup is half the carton of ice cream...).
7. And the 7th thing was a promotional part to sell you something that you can probably do for free so I won't waste my time mentioning it here.

Give these a shot and see how they go.

Thanks to Ingrid Kreger for forwarding me this article.

www.leanbodyfitness.com