How does portion control work for weight loss

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20th Mar 2018 15:59 (UTC)

It is so hard to say no to a large portion of delicious food, especially if hunger pangs have already struck. When we eat something we like, we are often tempted to go back and fill our plate again, well maybe just a little. While eating more food may make us feel good in the short term, all those extra calories count and it is unlikely that anyone will want to run a marathon in order to use all that extra energy and it will hinder your ability to lose weight if you are trying to diet.

Eating the correct portion sizes for starchy carbohydrates and protein, while balancing the meal with free vegetables or salad will help you lose weight and force you into a healthy diet that will increase your energy, improve your sleep, give you lush hair and nails and make you feel better overall. Using a portion control plate for your meals will help you limit your eating to only the amount of food to optimise your health and it will give you the optimum portion sizes to help you lose weight at a controlled rate that is sustainable in the long term.

Eating the correct portions of food by food group, can help you manage your blood glucose levels and your weight. To this end, you can fill your portion control plate easily right at the point of serving hot food, without having to count calories. According to the clinical data obtained from the results of the trial using this portion control plate, you are 3 times more likely to be able to control your blood sugars than going it alone, and, the clinical trial was performed on patients who used insulin, this is a group of people who really do struggle to lose weight. Apart from controlling their blood sugars, it also showed they were six times more likely to lose weight using the portion control plate involved in the trial.

A proper serving size can typically be found by reading a nutritional label, but a portion is the amount of food that a person actually consumes. Most of the time, the portion size is larger than the serving size because people don't know how to work out how much is the right amount and are often driven by their hunger pangs or eat with their eyes. Not only that, everyone's idea of what constitutes a correct portion is different as we are all shapes and sizes. Plus if your parents served large portions then often you have learned to do the same. So, it is better to follow the instructions on your portion control plate to meet your dietary and weight loss goals. It is portion control made easy and is simple to learn how much food you should be eating during each meal. Use the portion plate by simply filling them with the food that they specify in each area of the plate and don't let the food slide over the tapes, by keeping the portion inside the designated area, you have the weight of the food portion and therefore the calorie count. 

It can take the brain 20 minutes to receive the I'm Full signal, so if you use a portion plate it is really handy that you can still clear your plate without any guilt, but stop thinking that it is a bad thing to leave food on your plate if you do get a full signal, it is far more important to start listening to your body and leave a bit for Mr Manner's as they say.

The problem with making more food than you need to eat, is that it makes it very tempting to allow your eyes to get bigger than your stomach and you are tempted to serve up all the mashed potato, for example, rather than leave it in the pan or throw it away. Using a portion control plate will help you eat a measured amount of food from the start, eventually teaching you how much food to prepare. The portion plate will be nutritionally rebalanced so that you are always eating 33% starchy carbohydrates, 25% protein and the rest of the plate will be made up of free vegetables and by that we mean non-starchy, these measurements follow the British Dietetic Associations balance of good heath, optimising nutrients for better health all round.  It will also help you to evaluate the nutritional content of what you are eating before you begin. For example, you will have a better sense of how many servings of vegetables you have on your plate compared to how many servings of simple carbohydrates.

Drinking water with your meal is always a good thing to do, it keeps you fuller longer.  Also, stop to consider if you are going back for seconds because you are still hungry, or simply because the food is in sight and you enjoy it. And, if you have made too much food at dinner, plate up an extra meal for the fridge instead and save money on a lunch the following day.