Most of us associate weight loss with a fasting diet or strictly defined meals, which are not always tasty for us. Is this how it should look like? Is weight loss just tasteless food, giving up what we like and a constant feeling of hunger that causes weakness, fatigue and increasing stress in us? Not necessarily!
Losing weight can be really pleasant and most importantly effective, but if we approach it in the right way. So what is the most important thing we should prioritise? Moderation is undoubtedly the supreme element, as it happens in everything. If we understand what it should look like, then we can really eat things we want, but in the right amount. And it really is the key to the success we want to achieve, so lower weight and definitely a better look when it comes to reflection in the mirror.
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Controlling food portions is the most important element we should consider. Most people have a problem not with eating the wrong food, but eating too much. All this consequently causes us to gain weight. We won’t even notice when we suddenly gain 5 kilos. Portion control is essential if we care about the appearance that is our priority. In this article, we want to focus more closely on how to control these portions and what to do so that we don’t want to resort to the word weight loss. So are you ready for this?
What is portion control?
Portion control is nothing but one of the ways to effectively lose weight, in which the basis is eating healthy meals in the right quantities and proportions. When switching to a diet, most of us count calories and wonder how many macronutrients to adjust to make it right. Portion control is the ability to eat in such a way as to know what a healthy portion looks like for us and we should stick to such portions. What is most important – we should never eat until we are completely full. When eating, we should really feel a slight hunger when leaving the table. In fact, it’s only half an hour after a meal that the brain receives information that the body has satisfied hunger. This way, we do not put more calories in ourselves, so at the same time we can get a caloric deficit, and thus a chance to eat less than our body needs. This way we get energy not from food, but from our body fat.
How to start controlling portions?
By choosing a dietitian or making special calculations, we are able to get the exact amount of ingredients we need. And yes, we have the right food groups – vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy products, protein and oils. We should eat all this everyday. However, not everyone has the same portions, because everything depends on our weight, our lifestyle, activity, or what we want to achieve. If we gain knowledge of how many ingredients we need, then we will be able to control these portions and eat as much as we need to lose weight, but also to live healthy and function properly. For example:
A person who should eat about 2,000 calories a day should eat about 2.5 glasses of vegetables, 2 glasses of fruit, 3 cups of dairy products, 27 grams of oil, and 168 g of grain and 154 grams of protein.
Advantages of using portion control
If we decide on a particular way of losing weight, we know that the most important issue for us is the effectiveness of the solution. Portion control is definitely a very good choice for all those people who want to eat healthy, not starve, and at the same time lose weight and thus unnecessary fat. In most restaurants, the portions served are definitely larger than we need them to be. This means that we needlessly eat too many calories, and it’s a pity to not clean our plate, right? Thanks to portion control, we can learn how much food we need to function, but also to lose excess.
Beginning is the most difficult…
The beginnings are always the hardest in everything. We don’t know how much food we need, what these portions should look like, whether we eat enough or maybe too much. One portion size is not equal to another, and this often causes us to completely lose our sense of reality, and what is good and appropriate for us. Many people eat what they have on the plate looking at everything visually. If we reduce the meal, at first it seems that this is not enough. However, when our eyes get used to the new portions, it soon turns out that they are sufficient for us. A good trick in all this is to reduce the plate size along with the amount of food. A small plate full of food looks much better than a large plate on which this meal seems to be too little.
Tricks to help us reduce portions:
Improper cutlery and crockery
For example, we should get a smaller spoon to eat slower and enjoy the food. If we eat too fast, we feel unsatisfied and reach for more. With smaller cutlery, we will automatically eat slower. The situation is similar when it comes to dishes. We should choose smaller plates, and special containers, thanks to which we will be able to have the right portions of food.
Irregular food
We eat irregularly, and if we start eating every three hours, five meals a day, then it turns out that we do not need so much to feel good and not have a feeling of hunger, which is extremely tiring for everyone. The basis is therefore to eat more often and less and this is certainly the key to our success in the fight against extra weight.
Drinking water
We drink too little water. We hydrate too rarely and therefore we feel hungry more often. So if we start regularly drinking about 2.5 liters of water a day, we will certainly notice a significant difference in a very short time. Let’s not forget about water and drink it in small sips throughout the day, and before each meal let’s have one glass of water, which will also allow us to reduce our portions.
Summary
If we want to lose weight, we must do something with ourselves. Diet is 70% effective, so we should take care of it in a special way. Less food is an opportunity to get a calorie deficit, and thus the chance to start to lose weight.
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