portion control

Surefire Tips for Portion Control That Helped Me Lose Weight

by Joshua

Dieting, healthy foods, Water

This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy thru these links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.


portion controlWhen I was struggling with weight issues and trying to drop the excess pounds, portion control was one of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of healthy habits that I unleashed against my obesity.

With a goal of dropping below 200 pounds and needing to strike out the equivalent of four, full-weight bowling balls to get there, I decided that one area of my life in which I could make drastic improvements was not just in what I ate, but also in how much I consumed.

So, I started to take stock of what and how much I ate, and soon decided that my success would come with portion control.

Of course, cutting back on how much I ate would only help me wage half the battle. The rest of that fight would mean my having to find a way to stave off hunger without piling on the carbs, fats, and sodium that I so desperately was trying to cut back on.

Here’s what I did to cut back on the portions without feeling constantly hungry:

 

#1 – Graze like the cows.

I always swore by eating three squares growing up, but what ended up happening as I got into my late teenage years is that those three meals started looking bigger and bigger… and far less square.

I found that by ditching the three big meals a day and aiming for five or six mini meals, that I actually began eating less of the unhealthy food, and that vegetables and handy fruits (raisins and bananas, for example) started constituting more of my snacks.

 

#2 – Ramp up the water intake.

With less food on my plate, I feared that I would soon face the beast of hunger. And, I quickly did.

I soon offset the feeling of hunger by drinking more water, which not only is a far healthier choice than sodas and sugary juices, but also helps to hydrate the body and cleanse it of toxins. I always aimed for 8 glasses of water a day, which I easily got in by spreading them out over the entire day, particularly right before and just after meals.

 

#3 – Know what real serving sizes are.

Portions are the amount of food you eat, but servings refer to how much food one is recommended to eat. Learning that difference was a major revelation for me, because it then sparked a desire to learn exactly how much (or little) I should be eating.

Guidelines set by the American Dietetic Association were especially helpful, because they compare the various sizes of food servings to those of everyday items. For example, a serving of:

•    Pasta equals the size of a baseball, or 1 cup
•    Fruit is also equivalent to a baseball
•    Margarine is the size of a single dice, or 1 teaspoon
•    Meat comes to the thickness of a deck of cards, or 3 ounces
•    Cheese compares to four stacked dice, or 1-1/2 ounces

 

So, did my portion control efforts help me to lose weight? I am proud to resoundingly say, “yes!” In fact, I have not only reached my weight loss goal, but I have also managed to maintain it for 3 years now and counting. However, remember that portion control cannot in itself help you shed the pounds.

In addition to keeping a vigilant eye on how much I ate, other healthy habits I adopted in my daily routine included exercising  more, reducing the length of my sitting periods, choosing healthy fast food options when I had to eat on the go, and sleeping at least 7 or 8 hours a night on a regular basis.