Three Portion-Control Mind Tricks

Sometimes it is not so much what you are eating as how much you are eating that can wreak havoc on your weight. Portion size is a very important part of any weight-loss journey. The problem is that controlling portions can often lead to feelings of deprivation, which result in a binge. There are, however, ways to trick your mind into being more satisfied with less food.

-Use smaller plates. Have you ever noticed how large the plates are at some of the restaurants you eat at? Most are not even plates. They are huge platters. Can you imagine if you ate that much food at every single meal? The pounds would pile on in a very short period of time. After all, most people are taught as children to clean their plates.

The solution to this problem is very simple. Use smaller plates to eat your meals on. You may even want to consider using a saucer rather than an actual dinner plate. This will actually trick your mind into feeling satisfied with less food. If you put the same amount of food on a huge dinner plate, it is going to appear much less and you are going to feel deprived.

-Make less food. Some of us were taught to make plenty of food in case company stops in. 95% of the time, however, company does not stop in. What happens is that we are left with lots of food to tempt us into eating more than we should. If you are trying not to have second portions at dinner, why make second portions? Make enough for one portion. If you make more, you are setting yourself up for failure.

-Do not eat family style. Back when I was growing up, we always ate family style. I attribute this as to one of the reasons I have struggled with my weight on and off over the years. Mom would load the table up with bowls of her delicious food, and she wasn't happy until it was all gone. A much better way is to serve your plates directly from the stove. This way the food is not sitting there tempting you to take more and more. Of course, if you make one portion of food (as mentioned above) you can also avoid this issue.

-Use snack bags. There is nothing wrong with having one or two cookies...or a handful of chips or pretzels. The problem is that we usually open up an entire bag and sit there eating mindlessly until the entire bag is gone. A much better way is to divide the huge bag of snacks into small snack portions. This way you can have your snack without overindulging and without depriving yourself. You still need to be mindful, however, of how many snack bags you have. Don't sit and eat 5 snack bags filled with cookies or you will have defeated the purpose in using them.

Using the above tips will help trick your mind and ward off those feelings of deprivation that can lead you to binge.