Cut Your Food Portions and Lose Weight
It’s a new year and time for all those resolutions to better your health. One practical way to lose weight is to find ways cut your food portions while not going hungry – basically cutting calories yet feeling full by what you eat.
Here are few simple tips to cut food portions.
- Drink more water.
- Eat more vegetables.
- Measure your portions.
- Accessorize meals with starches and grains.
- Eat more slowly.
Drink More Water
Drink 16 ounces of water before a meal. This will fill you up and you’ll be less inclined to overeat. A cup or bowl of soup to begin a meal can accomplish much the same. Also, sometimes thirst masquerades as hunger. You may find that after drinking water your hunger pang subsides altogether. Drinking cold water increases metabolism, too, enabling you to more calories.
Eat More Vegetables
Vegetables are low in calories and high in fiber making them ideal foods to eat if weight loss is your goal. Fiber provides a sense of fullness. Vegetables can easily be mixed into recipes enabling you to reduce the content of high calorie dense starches and grains. Most vegetables are low glycemic. This means they do not stimulate excess release of insulin – the fattening hormone.
Measure Your Portions
Measure your portions in advance and do not eat more. Do not eat directly from a bag, box, can, or jar. Measure what you want and put the bag, box, can, or jar away. Better yet, try to not to eat anything from a bag, box, can, or jar as the foods they contain tend to have hidden sugars and are low in fiber.
Accessorize Meals with Grains and Starches
Grains and starches are many times the focus of the meal. Instead accessorize meals with them and make lean servings of protein, healthy fats, and vegetables the mainstays of the meal.
Eat Slowly
It can take 20 to 30 minutes for your brain to get a signal from your gut that it is full. If you eat too quickly you are likely to overeat before the brain signals you that your appetite has been satisfied.
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