Portion Control to Lose Weight

Learning to exercise portion control at meal times can be a good way to cut back on foods that cause weight gain, helping you to lose weight without too much effort.

A large percentage of the adult population is overweight or obese in the United States, with more than 13,000,000 children and teens being obese.

Experts blame the standard American diet for its obesity levels, which is often attributed to a large consumption of sweetened drinks, fast (junk) food and high-sugar foods.

It's high time we make healthier choices regarding our food habits. The ability to manage portion size can help you eliminate extra calories.

One recommendation is to investigate a meal replacement diet delivery program such as Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem or Medifast for example. In particular, the cost of Nutrisystem can be surprisingly affordable.

High Calorie Favorites

Americans tend to eat foods high on sugar and fat as the main source of their calories. These include yeast breads as well cookies and cakes.

These are also caused by energy drinks or sports drinks like sodas. Even some chicken dishes (breaded and fried) can contribute to too much fat in our diet.

Pizza, pasta, alcoholic beverages, and other high-calorie foods are staples in American cuisine. Vegetables are only a part of the daily calorie intake.

Serving the Right Sizing

Allow your body to adjust to smaller portions by reducing them to healthier sizes. Super-sized portions of food at restaurants and fast food outlets are common.

For weight loss, reduce your plate size. Check out my Nutrisystem review to learn about a convenient and simple solution to lose weight, often with a discount promotion to take advantage of.

Along with increasing portions, dinner plates are larger. While many people have been taught "clean your plates," this may indicate that they're overeating.

Food to Avoid

American women consume around 800 calories each day from sugars and trans fats (even higher for men). This is approximately half the daily requirement for calories for an average woman.

U.S. dietary guidelines recommend restricting the intake of saturated, trans, and solid fats. For a healthier diet, eliminate fast foods as well as refined grain products such white bread.

Sea salt, instead of table salt, can help reduce high blood pressure and heart disease risk.

Healthier Options

You can include more of the healthier foods in your diet. Select grass-fed protein-rich meat and seafood instead of bulking out on sugar-rich carbohydrates.

There is a lot of advice to choose mostly whole grains over cereals or bread/pasta with refined grains. However, the human body has a hard time processing grains as they cause problems in the gut.

So if you can avoid ALL grains, your digestive organs will thank you!

For cooking, replace unhealthy, inflammation-causing vegetable oils with extra virgin olive or coconut oils. Choose grass-fed butter instead of margarine, which is made from unhealthy hydrogenated oil.

You can easily load up on fresh vegetables in any meal, especially leafy greens such as cruciferous (broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower etc). While vegetables are carbohydrates, most of their mass is made up of fiber, which does not get converted to sugar in the body, but instead actually aids digestion!

There are many healthy foods to choose from that can actually help you reduce your sugar intake so you can lose weight.

Pizza

One of the real problem foods for causing weight gain of the last few decades is pizza.

This convenient and great tasting meal is unfortunately full of sugar, salt, solid fat and calories!

The main weight-gain ingredient in pizza is actually the bread base, since it is usually made from refined flour that is super high ion the glycemic index, meaning it raises blood sugar very fast.

If you must eat pizza, opt for thin crust varieties and instead of sitting down to eat a whole pizza, share it with friends and only take a single slice.

Smaller Plates

You can eat smaller plates, such as a small salad plate, to ensure proper portion sizes. The right portion size is important so that you can serve the right amount.

Reserve leftovers for later use in single-serving container containers.

If you are vegetarian, you already have a head start because you can eat more vegetables pound for pound than meat products and not gain weight. Remember, refined carbs are the main problem foods to avoid, which is also good advice for diabetics.

Dining Out

When dining out, it is still possible to reduce the amount of food you eat by asking for smaller plates. Take care to make sure that you eat healthy portions from restaurants.

Here are some handy tips to help you cut back on food:

• Order half of a standard size meal or a child's portion.
• Ask to have half of the entrée boxed before you eat it.
• An appetizer and soup are better choices than a main dish.
• Share full-sized plates of food with others at the table.

Summary

The idea of controlling food portion size is to help you reduce the calorie intake at each meal to combat being overweight.

While this can help your weight loss strategy, you need to be mindful of which foods cause the most weight gain and avoid them, while filling up on those foods that are less likely to increase your sugar intake and actually help you to burn fat rather than storing it.


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