Weekly Tip: Portion Control

I'm a firm believer in the idea that it's not necessarily what you eat that impacts your weight, but how much.  Everything in moderation, right?  A lot of people struggle with portion control, including myself, and no matter how much working out you do, if you're still eating too much you won't be able to achieve your weight loss goals.  Understanding what 1 serving of something actually looks like can really help.  Learning how much food is appropriate to eat in one sitting can be a challenge, and one of my main goals for my weight loss journey was to adjust my concept of portion sizes and what's appropriate, so I've come up with a list of tips on how to train yourself to eat less.

•  Track your food!  I've said this once and I'll say it again: tracking my food has been the single most helpful change I've made since starting my challenge.  I had no idea how much food I was actually eating until I started recording every bite, and it really opened my eyes to the fact that I was eating way too much.  If you start keeping track of your food intake, you automatically start thinking about your food choices more, which can lead to better eating habits.
• If you're a visual person, use smaller plates.  You have to trick your brain into thinking that a full, albeit smaller, plate of food is the appropriate amount.  Especially if you feel the need to finish everything that's on your plate, this trick will allow you to do so without overeating.
• Put your fork down in between each bite.  We all need to slow things down a little when it comes to meal times.  We're always so rushed to shovel all our food into our mouths like it's going to disappear, but guess what: it's not going anywhere.  If you slow down your eating, you give your stomach time to send signals to your brain that you're full, so you end up eating less.
• Don't put more food in your mouth until you've swallowed your last bite.  Why must we constantly try to fit as much food into our mouths as possible?  Waiting until you've swallowed to take another bite of something works on the same principle as the last trick, it slows you down.
• Read nutrition labels.  Any food that comes with a label will give you a serving size, and this is what you need to be paying more attention to.  Not only does reading the nutritional information help you get a better idea of what you're putting in your body, but sticking to the serving size listed on the package means you're eating the proper amount.

In order to break bad habits, we have to create new ones to replace them.  These tips will help you retrain yourself into understanding how much food is the right amount to be eating.  Let me know if they work for you!