Practical Tips to Help with Portion Control

It is no coincidence that super-sized portions have occurred with increased rates of obesity around the world. A healthy diet is about slow and sustainable changes in our eating behaviours. Learning portion control is a vital skill in this journey to health. By practicing portion control, it becomes possible to eat the foods you enjoy but  in controlled amounts, while boosting your nutrient intake by eating better amounts of the good quality foods.

Here are some practical ways to effectively and easily help control your portion sizes.

Fill half your plate with colour:

Fill up half of your plate with your favourite salad and/or vegetables. This way, there will be less room for other foods on your plate before you even start to dish up chicken, fish, meat and starches.

Soup up:

Another way to bulk up on vegetables is to serve a hearty portion of a vegetable-based soup as an appetiser before meals. You will end up eating fewer kilojoules in the main part of the meal as the soup fills you up beforehand. Make homemade veggie soups such as chunky vegetable soup, tomato soup, lentil soup, or minestrone. Limit cream-based soups and additions like croutons and bread. In summer, the same concept can work by serving a large salad before the main meal.

Shrink your plate:

Interestingly, dinner plates in restaurants and in our homes have gotten bigger over the years, and consequently, so have the amount of food we dish up. A 2015 study showed that when a plate size is doubled, this increases the amount of food eaten by 41%. In contrast, halving the size of the plate results in a 30% reduction in amount of food eaten. Stock up on smaller dinner plates, or better yet, eat off a side plate to help control portions.

Go with colour:

According to a 2012 study by food psychologist, Dr Brian Wansink, the colour of your plate can influence what you eat. The researchers found that when a plate and the food on it had a low colour contrast (such as white rice on a white plate), participants served themselves 22% more than when there was a higher colour contrast (like a tomato-based pasta on a white plate or baked potato on a red plate). The key learning from this study may be that to eat less it’s best to choose plates with a colour contrast to the food you’re serving. Use this to your advantage to eat healthier foods: serve a big salad on a large green plate.

Dish up from the kitchen:

When serving meals at home, dish up from the kitchen and not from the family dinner table. Placing dishes on the dinner table may tempt you to go for second helpings. Mindless eating can occur as you nibble at food while chatting after a meal.

Love the leftovers:

To take it one step further, as you are dishing for a meal, place leftovers immediately into containers for lunch the next day. This way there is no opportunity for seconds.

Eat out, stay slim:

Share a few starters among several eating companions, or ask for half portions of a main meal instead. If you have a full portion, ask the waiter to immediately box up half to take home.

Take a stroll:

In a study by Cornell University, over 75% of diners selected the first food they saw, and the first three foods a person saw in the buffet made up two-thirds of all the foods they plated. When eating from a buffet, take a brief walk around all the options before starting to dish.

Do not serve out of the package:

The same researchers from Cornell University found that people eat 50% more chips when there are no visual cues as to how much was eaten. Instead of eating directly out of the packet of crisp or box ox biscuits, take out the amount to eat and eat off a plate or out of a bowl.

Work for your food:

To slow you down when eating, include more foods that require some effort to eat, such as peeling a naartjie or peeling pistachios out of the shell.

Eat regularly:

Skipping meals can be disastrous for portion control as you are more likely to eat too large of a portion at the next main meal. For most, three healthy and balanced main meals with one or two snacks in the day will help control hunger levels and thus portions.

Chew your food:

Paying attention to the numbers of chews you are taking ultimately slows you down which leads to eating less. When we eat more slowly, we tend to eat more mindfully, and, in turn, eat less.