It’s no secret that I struggle with my diet more than I struggle with my exercise. However, I AM making progress; It’s a slow progress, but it’s generally in the right direction.
One of the things that I struggle with the most is portion control. I’m not good at eating just one serving of cookies, or chips, or ice cream. Nor am I good at eating one serving of chicken, or spinach, or blueberries.
Whenever I find little gems that help me win these tiny battles with portion control, I like to write about them so that they’ll stay fresh in my mind for a bit. Here are some recent tips that I’ve found and would like to incorporate in to my eating habits.
Learn from your Diet mistakes–Learning to eat healthy is a journey. Many of us have spent a life time acquiring bad habits, we can’t expect them to be erased over night. Try and focus on the victories while still being mindful (and learning from ) of the defeats. Eventually, the victories will start to outnumber the defeats and it will get easier to maintain healthy habits. Until then, fight hard and DON’T give up!
Don’t use visual clues when eating–Many of us stop eating when the container is empty. We eat until the bag of chips is gone, or until our plate is clean. We eat with our eyes instead of our stomachs. We eat until our pants feel uncomfortable and THEN we stop. How can we stop doing these things and start paying attention to when our stomach tells us we’re full? There are lots of ways:
- Use smaller plates
- Eat while sitting
- Concentrate on eating when you’re eating–don’t multitask!
- Eat slowly
- Taste your food and enjoy it
All of these little tricks will help you become a healthier eater.
Make your own Portion Control Bags–If you know how much you’re supposed to eat, but have a hard time not reaching into that bag of chips or box of crackers buy snacks that are already packaged into 1-portion increments. This may cost more money and be less environmental, but if it’s the only way that it gets you to control your eating, it may be worth it. You could also make, reuse, and recycle your own single portion servings of your favorite snacks with ziploc bags.
If none of these tricks work for you, then do what I need to start doing–buy carrots, not cookies! Do you have any tricks to help you maintain your proper portion size?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
A tip I read somewhere has really helped me cut back on Doritos — a favorite of mine. After you buy the bag of chips (or whatever) take the time to separate it into the recommended portion. I put 1 oz of chips into zip top bags. When I want a snack, I pull out one of the pre-measured portions and snack away.
I highly recommend _Mindless Eating_. Basically the whole book is tips on portion control – written by a professor but very easy, actually fun, fascinating read.
One of his best tips was to serve yourself, then put serving dishes BACK IN THE KITCHEN. It makes it harder to go for seconds you don’t need. Salad and broccoli of course can stay on the table.
I just bought and read The Instinct Diet by Susan B. Roberts, PhD, which is partly about portion control, and I highly recommend it.
The book is new, and is by a professor of nutrition and psychology at Tufts University, who is also an internationally recognized expert on nutrition and obesity. The book is all about the natural instincts we as humans have developed that encourage overeating and how to understand and use these instincts to our advantage. Like other diet books, it includes a 3-stage 8+ week meal plan. But unlike other similar books, her meals actually look edible and do-able, and I trust what she writes because she’s actually a diet doctor, and her recommendations are based on her two decades of research and conducting studies.
I have the same problem and it will be interesting to see other’s tips and tricks. Thanks Mac for your tips, and I am right there with you during that slow progress! Keep it up!
I portion everything I can up in advance – from granola to soups. sure I have a ton of plastic containers knocking around, but I also know I can grab a perfect 1/2 cup of granola when I want a snack, and not eat a whole 6 portion bag in one go!
I think you’re right that these are long-term habits — perhaps from childhood when, like my mother, yours might have demanded that one eat everything one was served…
Just this morning, I was trimming the crust off my toast and thinking about how long it took me to give myself permission not to eat the part I didn’t enjoy, just because it was there. Similarly, in restaurants, for years I found it hard to say, “this didn’t taste as good as I hoped,” and not finish something just because I ordered it.
Anyway, in terms of specific portion control tips, one of the easiest for me is to share with my husband (who has no weight concerns) and give him “the big half” of whatever we’re eating.
I like this post as it confirms what I already believe. Losing weight is about changing your habits for real, not about crazy short term diets. I always think it’s a good idea to keep a journal, and write down everything you eat and why you’re eating. In this way, you can more easily see the bad habits you’ve picked up and then change them.
- Dave
The book that has helped me deal with this and all my other food issues is “The Beck Diet Solution” by Judith Beck. It has really changed my relationship with food and my weight has been dropping steadily since reading and doing the homework from the book. Good luck!
I have the same trouble with portion control and here are a few tips that have worked for me:
never eat/drink from the container. Always put the chips in a bowl and pour the pop into a glass (even if it’s from a small bottle). I even cut up fruit and put it on a plate. For some reason, an apple cut into eight wedges seems like more food than just eating the same apple straight.
Get really nice but small dishes that will serve as your main flatware. I have a lovely sushi plate and condiment bowl that I use for dinner plate and ice cream/yogurt. Because these are nice dishes, they remind me that eating is rather special, and because they are small, I can mound food on them and still get a smaller serving that I normally would. (Yes, it’s true. I weighed the portion.)
Writing down everything I eat helps me, especially if it gets written down prior to getting eaten. It also helps me to just not eat sweets. If I have traditional deserts, I want more — both immediately after finishing and over the next few days. But the more I bypass deserts, the less I want them. Try giving up artificial sweeteners, too. I think they totally condition your body to want more and more sweets.
Some really good tips in the post and the comments here. I do the portion bags thing (20 almonds in a little ziploc etc) – it doesn’t have to be environmentally unfriendly, I reuse them. Never eat from the container is also excellent advice.
I also get my husband – the cook in my household – to give me a smaller plate than he has at dinnertime. I’m pretty small and can’t eat a man-size portion, but will if he serves us each identical meals.
I heartily recommend Brooklynchick’s recommendation to read Mindless Eating. My dietitian recommended it and it was fun, interesting, and informative. Written by a food researcher who has done tons of experiments, lots of footnotes to delve into if you want more information, witty anecdotes.
Since last year I’ve been pre-bagging snacks into 1-serving packages. Also try to remember to stack my dinner plate heavy on the vegetables (half the plate veggies). Wansink (the author of Mindless Eating) refers to the “Mindless Margin” a lot… basically it doesn’t take that many calories extra (+ or – 100 a day) over the course of a year to cause 20 pounds to stay (or go!) so I’ve been trying to shave a few calories here and there, like switching to using almond milk on my morning cereal instead of skim milk (60 cal vs. 90 cal per cup). Portion size is the hardest thing to get under control because you can’t just do it by feel or estimate, your brain will trick you every time so you have to trick it back, like the trick of using small plates or pre-established portions.
Yeah I have just started my weight loss task and I’ve found the eat slowly rule applies very strongly. I started at 225 so I am not a little guy and so far the main lesson is “quit eating so much!”
While eating more slowly I notice I do get a the full feeling come on a lot sooner in the eating process.
As an environmental engineer, I instictively cringe when I hear ‘less environmental’.
Environmentaly-friendly solutions are everywhere and are almost always inherently frugal (imagine how many less baggies you’ll end up buying; and how much you save buying food in bulk!!)
I have been using the same reusable plastic containers for years. They come in ALL shapes at sizes at any target or wal-mart and are so easy to clean. No excuses!!
@Brooklyn, Nik, and other book recommenders: Thanks for the advice! I’ll definitely check out Mindless Eating and the Beck Diet Book.
@Dave: I meant to say that those “100 calorie snack packs” are unenvironmental and that buying in bulk and pre portioning with ziploc bags is a good alternative. Sorry you misunderstood my meaning.
1. Don’t eat right out of a container. I used to be bad about this. Sit down with a bag of Cheetos, and before I knew it, the whole bag was gone. Instead, get out a bowl and put what you want in there.
2. Ice cream – switch to prepackaged ice cream. I like the Drumsticks. One is tasty, and fulfills my craving, without “breaking the calorie bank.”
3. Use 100-calorie snack packs for “on the go” eating. My wife loves the Oreo Thin Crisps.
My favorite way to eat lighter is simply to stop buying most pre-packaged snacks. Instead of buying even the “healthy” granola bars in the package, I set aside an hour over the weekend to make my own granola and store it in small containers (repurposed 1 cup jam jars are perfect!) to serve as snacks throughout the week.
My favorite “sneaky” ways to trick myself into eating lighter include
1. using chopsticks, for everything (even pudding!)
2. using a smaller spoon. Instead of using a soup spoon for that creamy soup, I’ll treat myself to the fatty soup and just slowly spoon it up with a tiny teaspoon.
3. throw extra veggies/fruits into everything, even already healthy things. I put extra veggies into ramen (unhealthy, duh!), scrambled eggs, and sandwiches. I throw extra fruit into oatmeal (frozen blueberries while it’s cooking, craisins when it’s done cooking, applesauce to sweeten) and even into sandwiches (craisins are amazing in turkey sandwiches and any dried fruit goes great with peanut butter and tahini with a smear of honey).
4. In the cupboard, I keep the unhealthy snacks behind the healthy ones. The raw almonds, dried apricots, and walnuts sit in front of the pringles, goldfish crackers, and snap cookies (my fiance loves unhealthy food, so I hide them from him as much as from me).
I have a neat gadget called a Meal Measure that measures my food on my plate.