Do you super-size at home?

You may be sabotaging your weight loss plan without even knowing it when you prepare your meals at home.

Have you noticed how LARGE china dinner plates have gotten in the last few years? They are colorful and beautiful, but sometimes they are so big that they won't even fit in our standard size kitchen cabinets!  It's true that even the dinnerware manufacturers are contributing to our obesity epidemic because we put the plate on the table and then proceed to fill it up! And if you - like me - were raised to clean your plate, you can be getting 1000 calories or more at dinner time - even when the food is cooked in a healthy way-- all because you are unaware that you are getting more than a single serving size of most of your food. Those calories add up!

So step one is to make a 9" dinner plate your standard size. That may be what you have, but often this is called a "luncheon" plate. Some folks I know choose a salad plate and say they still get enough to eat. You can look at standard Chinette or paper plates -- these are usually 9" in diameter. I am adding an image of what we call the "portion plate." It's a tool for teaching people the recommended sizes  for food servings.

Step two is to divide your plate in 4 equal parts. Put mixed salad greens and veggies in 2 sections. Put a healthy lean protein - maybe a chicken breast, lean grilled beef, broiled fish fillet or beans - in 1 of the 1/4 sections.  This space is large enough for a deck of cards - which just happens to be the size your protein should be!

In the final quarter of your 9" plate put 1/2 cup whole grain: this could be whole wheat bread, brown or wild rice, couscous or barley, for example. Or, you can skip the grain and add another vegetable.

Changing the size of your plate automatically reduces the amount of food you serve yourself. Dividing your plate into fourths and changing the foods you put in each section helps you learn what the correct portion size is for each food group -- and that helps you limit the number of calories you will consume at each dinner.  I bet you will be surprised to find that you feel satisfied, but not stuffed, when you design your dinner around the "portion plate". This may be the change you need to trigger your weight loss.