Lose Weight by Controlling Portion Size

If you can control the portion sizes of the foods you eat, you can eat anything you want. For example, if you can eat one small piece of chocolate or one small scoop of ice-cream or one handful of chips, you can eat those foods every day and not worry about gaining weight from them. Right now, you’re probably saying, “Yeah, right!” because you can’t imagine being able to eat such small amounts of your favorite indulgence foods and feeling satisfied.

Don’t worry. It’s a process you have to discover; it doesn’t usually happen overnight.

When you prepare meals using these menus for guidance, you figure out how to eyeball a specific amount of food and know that it’s an appropriate portion sizes to eat on a calorie-controlled diet. The portion sizes represent an average number of calories for each food group. In other words, you may see 1 cup of broccoli on one menu and 1 cup of mini carrots on another. You’re free to ignore both suggestions and substitute a cup of snow peas or a cup of asparagus. That’s because, as a group, a portion of one vegetable contains approximately the same number of calories as the same portion size of another vegetable.

In addition to helping you lose weight, good weight-loss plan shows you how to eat in a way that you’ll eventually be able to maintain your weight loss without being on such a strict diet by just controlling the portion sizes. You won’t always have to struggle with concepts like portion size, after you figure out what eating a reasonable portion sizes means. The plus side to controlling your portion sizes is that by limiting the amount of each individual food you eat, you can eat several different types of foods. Eating different types of foods not only helps ensure you’re getting a balance of essential nutrients, but it also helps keep your low-calorie diet from getting boring.

However, you can go overboard, even with the good stuff. On a low-cal diet, you can eat too much of the good stuff, such as fruit and vegetables, because all foods supply calories and even the most nutritious foods add excess calories to your diet if you eat too much of them. As a result, you need to know how to control your portion sizes when you’re on a mission to lose weight.

When you’re home, you can portion size your food with measuring cups and spoons as a way of teaching yourself what a serving size looks like. When you’re eating out, the easiest way to figure out portion size is by using visual aids for standard serving sizes. You can use your hand to measure your favorite foods at home and to gauge your portion sizes when you’re away from your own kitchen. For instance, a standard portion size of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand.

Make a fist, and you’re looking at a cup of vegetables or pasta. From the tip of your thumbnail to its second joint is about the size of an ounce of cheese. The more average-size your hand, the more accurate these measurements are. But if you’re a large person, with large hands, you need to eat a little more food anyway, so this strategy still works for you this hands-on approach.