With the start of the New Year, losing a few pounds is often high on many people's "to do" list. A solution: use grandma's dishes. However you decide to meal prep, make sure veggies take up ⅓ to ½ of your meal. A Food scale. It can be a bummer but also seriously enlightening to finally understand how much we’re being served.

The big takeaway is understanding portion sizes are simply how much we need to eat in a day, vs what we generally eat in a day, and this can be shocking! It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

Accept cookies or opt-out? Just ask for the dressing on the side. As I referred to them in my book, The Portion Teller Plan, volume eaters like a large portion of food.

This study found that people who thought alcohol was heart-healthy drank nearly 50% more alcohol than those who did not.

I don’t want to cook! This is portion excess. This study found that halving plate size led to a 30 percent reduction in amount of food consumed. A client of mine did this and lost 20 pounds, effortlessly. Portion size can be summarized as the reasonable measurement of food for a single person. Our meal prep containers were intentionally designed to fit healthy single-serving portion sizes. Many of these tricks are rooted in behavior change which serve as cues to gently remind us to eat mindfully...to eat when hungry...to eat more slowly...and to eat less. Take a ruler to the plates you own and toss anything wider than 9 inches (unless it’s for serving guests). ), The Portion Control Diet: ThinkFit’s Key to Successful Meal Prep, ThinkFit wants you to try something new (that’s actually pretty old): a. Low-fat cookies are still cookies and gluten-free crackers are still crackers. I invite you try it. Several caveats: skip the cream soups and go easy on salt.

In my opinion, this is a much healthier and balanced approach.

In the 1980’s, plates stretched to 10 inches across and 1,000 calories before hitting 11 inches across in the 2000’s, holding 1,600 calories. We’re not talking about limited options, kid sized portions, or depriving yourself of food. Why does a portion control diet plan work for long term weight loss? If you’ve ever eaten more than one bowl of cereal, dished yourself up a pint of ice cream, or put your hand multiple times into a bag of chips, you probably know why you aren’t losing weight.

Why does this matter, though, and what does this mean for you? Most meal prep containers you’ll find in supermarkets, online, or in boutique fitness stores hold around 3-5 cups of food.

You won’t be restricting yourself, which is a dangerous headspace to be in when you’re working to change your eating behaviors for the better. Watching portion sizes is an effective way to stay slim. The portion control approach to weight loss just makes sense! Live Your Life and Your Passion Will Find You, I lost 7 lbs in 7 Days with Bright Line Eating, Protein: 1 deck of cards (or the size of your palm) for 3 ounces of chicken, beef, fish, turkey, pork. Portion Control {The Popcorn…, 5 Ways to Control Portions While Snacking. Mid-day meal (I’m not calling it a snack, because we are sitting down to eat it, but we have = 2 cups dairy and 1 ounce grains, so yogurt with granola is perfect!

A severe restriction in calories can have highly damaging effects on your health, including triggering a “starved” response from your body which works to keep every precious calorie and pound you have - now and in the future. The trick is to heighten the flavor of a meal without edging you over your calorie count. It may be used to quantify recommended amounts, as is the case with the MyPlate food groups, or represent quantities that people typically consume on a Nutrition Facts label. If you are not much of a breakfast eater, no worries. Most importantly? If you’re new to prepping, start small as to not initially overwhelm yourself! If we eat too many calories, we will have an excess leftover from our daily burning, resulting in fat buildup. In fact, people who eat a large vegetable-based soup as an appetizer often end up eating fewer calories at the rest of the meal.