The old saying, "The Bigger the Better" is so not true when it comes to food portions. It seems in America, the portions are getting bigger and bigger...right along with our waistlines! If you're concerned about losing weight, then you need to create a calorie deficit, meaning you're eating fewer calories than your body needs. Portion control is a key factor in creating a calorie deficit.
In a society that has the residue of growing up with parents who always forced us to clean our plates because there were starving children in Africa, we now feel the need to eat everything that is on our plates. So the bigger the plate, the bigger the meal, the more we feel compelled to eat.
There are three ways that you can go about remedying this situation, and one of my favorites is the first:
"Get It To Go"-When eating out at a restaurant, when the server brings your food, immediately request a To Go container. Then, put half your meal in the container to take home with you, and eat the remaining for your meal at the restaurant. Oftentimes, when we eat the full meal on the plate, we end up eating until we're stuffed. Well if we eat until we're stuffed, that's a miserable existence and a recipe for disaster when it comes to your weight loss goals, and, you'll be surprised just how satisfied you are with the portion remaining on your plate. All this time you were thinking you HAD to have all that food...but that's not the case!
"Downsize Your Plate"-instead of eating your homecooked meal on a dinner plate, choose to eat it on a saucer. There's something about "white space" on a plate that makes us feel like we have to fill that space. Well when you eat on a saucer, you'll be able to fill every inch of the dish, and you'll have a much smaller portion size aka eat fewer calories.
"Use Your Hand as Your Guide"-when making your dishes at home, you don't need measuring cups to know the proper portions you should have of your macros, you can use your hands as guides! For example, a 4 oz portion of lean protein is the equivalent of the your fist. 1 cup of complex carbohydrates is equivalent to a cupped handful and so on. There's a handy guide you can use to help you measure your portions in the kitchen attached to this post!
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