Controlling Your Portions

Do you see yourself slogging of exercising and eating healthy food, still not achieving results? Portion control maybe something you have overlooked. Managing the amount of food that you eat is as important as keeping a tap of the kind of stuff you eat and exercise.

Serving isn’t the amount of food you can pile on to your plate; one serving is a specific measure, which you need to be very careful about. Getting yourself used to adhering to portion sizes isn’t tough. Here are 10 ways by which you can manage your portions:

Storing leftovers:

While storing leftovers make sure you store them as separate portions instead of the entire bulk together. This way when you reach out to left-over you would heat & consume only a single portion.

Go the salad way:

Beginning your lunch and dinner with salad satisfies your hunger to great extent and give you a sense of satiety sooner. Have a good portion of vegetable salad, you can also add lean meat like chicken breast or turkey cubes. Lean meat provide instant energy boost and vegetable fibre helps you feel fuller.

Small portions of trigger foods:

When shopping for snacks choose small size packs instead of the bigger ones, better still buy single serving packets. If that is not a possibility divide full size packages into smaller, individual bags.

5-6 Small meals throughout the day:

This would keep your hunger pangs at bay and would reduce the amount of food eaten on a daily basis. Mini meals are best to keep your portions in check as you wouldn’t ever feel famished or very hungry.

Keep second serving at bay:

Don’t go in for second serve, give a 15 minutes break after your first serve and you wouldn’t have the urge to have a second helping.

Reverse the role of meat and veggies:

Turn meat into your side dish and make vegetables your main course. This would help you feel fuller and give you the, much needed vitamins and fibre.

Cut your meal into half:

Create a meal buddy at work and share food with him/her, both of you don’t need to carry lunch every day and you tend to eat less as you carry lesser food. You can also keep half of your lunch aside to be consumed as dinner.

Know your serving standards:

Make sure you are adhering to the serving norms when eating out. Some handy tips are: 3 oz. of meat is the size of a deck of cards or an audio tape; 1 oz. of meat is the size of a matchbook; 1 cup of potatoes, rice or pasta looks like a tennis ball.

Indulge once in a while:

You won’t feel deprived if you have your favourite forbidden food once in a while.