Because (as of September 2019) adult obesity rates have reached 31.8% in Illinois alone, I have found it necessary in my past 3 health articles, to assume the topic of popular U.S. weight loss diets. Joining the Fasting, Keto, and Paleo diets in this issue is the Portion Control Diet. Perhaps the easiest to follow of the four dieting lifestyles, the Portion Control Diet, for the most part, can be adapted to your own way of eating, provided you make healthy choices.
First, it becomes critical to understand the difference between a portion and a serving of the same food item.
***A portion IS NOT THE SAME as a serving.
A portion is the amount of food placed on your plate. As seniors you surely have noticed the increase in portion sizes of food served in restaurants and, thus, filtering down to home use throughout the past decades. Mentioned on food labels visible throughout grocery stores, and on many menus found in restaurants is the word “serving.” In contrast to a portion, a serving is a specific amount of food that equals a certain amount of calories. In the past decades, according to Dr. Lisa Young (author of THE PORTION TELLER PLAN), “The supersizing of American food has caused many of us to suffer from “portion distortion.”
We’ve all become so accustomed to gargantuan servings that the terms small, medium, and large make no sense anymore. We no longer have any way to judge how much we eat.” Pennsylvania State University researchers have discovered that, with larger food portions, we are eating 30 to 50 percent more food, but not feeling any fuller.
No matter how healthy your diet (dietetic, low-fat, no-carb), the larger the size or number of the food item/s, the more calories it has. The fact is, that if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. Consuming fewer calories than you burn will aid in your loss of weight. Nutritionists recommend that we eat an average of 2,000 to 2,600 calories per day to maintain weight. This amount depends, however, entirely on our gender, body size, and most important, activity level. The often difficult task of determining portion size is based, therefore, on how many calories you are personally allowed during the day to maintain or lose weight.
Here are some of our author’s helpful hints in becoming successful on the Portion Control Diet:
1. Go Retro: In the 50s smaller portions existed in homes, as well as in restaurants. Use your Grandma’s choice of smaller-sized dishes at home or elsewhere for smaller food portions. Don’t hesitate to share larger portions with your restaurant eating partner, or to take extra food home in a “baggy.”
2. Speaking of “baggies,” downsize your portions by using varying sizes of the plastic (to be refrigerated or frozen) bags.
3. Eat a small breakfast to expand your stomach much less for hunger pains later in the day.
4. Portion control begins with cutting-size control. It has been discovered that slicing a pizza into smaller-sized pieces will psychologically lead to less pizza eating. Your number of pieces may be the same but the food content will become less.
5. You can eat more but weigh less with the consumption of low calorie, water-based fruits and vegetables.
6. Eat lots of soup (water based) but skip the creamy varieties. Be careful with salt usage at all times.
7. Take out measuring cups when necessary. The palm of your hand can also be used roughly for a 3-ounce size of meat and chicken; the fist can be used roughly for a 1-cup supply of rice or pasta.
8. Slow down when eating to become more conscious of the food’s taste and what you are eating. You can even count the number of bites you are taking on a particular food item.
9. Cook more at home where you can control portion sizes and lower calorie food choices.
