... and this is especially true when we are on track to creating a healthier eating lifestyle. Given the choice between the 4 plates below, most people would chose Plate 1 ~ assuming they were getting more for their money. What plate would you choose?
Actually all the plates contain the same amount of food - it's the size of plate that is visually making it seem as one plate has more food than the other.
A standard dinner plate size has increased by 3.5 inches since the 1960s, not a huge amount. But the amount of food which it is able to hold has increased more than 50%. And of course many of us take full advantage of this new found plate Real Estate.
Lets look at this in terms of calories.... we are now able to pile on 1900 calories VS. 800 calories of food onto our plates. Below is an example of how easily it is done.
The more white space we see on the plate the more food we add. It's no wonder we are struggling with getting our weight under control, even if we have turned to a healthy eating lifestyle.
At the High Heeled Life home, we have started to look at the size of plates, glasses and bowls we use on a regular basis and are slowly changing to smaller sizes that do not make a portion size look small. Do you use large plates, bowls, glasses or do you use smaller ones to help you stay on track with REAL portion size?
Of course it's important to choose healthy foods over processed and filler filled foods. But it is equally important to do a reality check on what an actual portion really is, you'll be surprised!
Here is a chart to help get you started...
If you you really want to be surprised try this : after pouring your "healthy" whole grain cereal into a bowl, pull out the measuring cup and pour the cereal in. Chances are you are regularly consuming 1.5 to 2 portion sizes instead of the single portion size of 1/2 cup. Now look and see how many extra calories your are innocently consuming each morning.
Let's do all we can to help each other achieve our healthy eating lifestyle - so we can heap the side effect , of healthier weight and waist line.
In the next installment of The Other Side of Thin , I will be sharing more portion distortion. Please share your discoveries. We are in this together folks!
Other Side of Thin Series ~ Part One
Sharing with Post of the month club
image credit Google images
