Size it Up
Visualization is a great strategy for controlling portion sizes. It starts by knowing what an optimal serving of each food group looks like.
Here is a great chart from our friends at Prevention Magazine.
Once you know what an optimal portion looks like, you can use some other cool tips to make sure your meals are balanced.
The 400 Calorie Fix recommends this simple strategy:
- Mentally divide your plate into six sections
- Fill one section with a serving of protein (3 oz. cooked meat, chicken, or fish; 1 cup milk or yogurt)
- Fill two sections with two servings of a whole grain like rice, pasta or bread
- Fill three sections with veggies (1 cup each)
- Watch out for hidden calories from fats and sugars
What you are doing is training your eyes (and your stomach) to recognize and be satisfied with a healthy, balanced meal. It’s not a perfect system, but a lot easier than counting calories, carbs or fats.
Traps to Watch Out For
Although portion control will go a long way to providing you with a healthy diet, it is not a license to indulge in high carb, high fat, high sugar meals!
The first culprit is hidden sugar.
To curb belly fat, Jorge Cruise recommends eating no more than 15 grams of sugar a day. You can blow that with just one can of cola, which contains 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar!
But it’s not just sugary sodas that are the problem. We normally think of fruit juice as a healthy alternative…but an 8 oz. bottle of cranberry juice has almost the same amount of calories and sugar as the cola.
Sugar is a hidden ingredient in many other products we consume every day, such as ketchup and barbecue sauce. There is no alternative. You have to read the labels and replace overly sugared products with the tasty alternatives you can find in many grocery stores.
Jorge Cruise has an entire chapter in The Belly Fat Cure: Discover the New Carb Swap System and Lose 4 to 9 lbs. Every Week
Beware the Fat
It is not just hidden sugar that can throw you off course. You have to watch out for the hidden fat in salad dressings, mayonnaise and other condiments. And don’t forget to ask how the food was prepared.
According to the 400 Calorie Fix, here are some words to watch out for:
- Creamy
- Crispy
- Fried
- Crunchy
- Breaded (and fried)
- Flaky
- Trans fat free (may still have other kinds of fat
How to avoid the hidden fats in salad dressing?
- Ask for low fat dressing on the side (up to 2 Tbsp.)
- Dip your salad in the dressing instead of pouring on a whole serving
- Use vinegar and oil instead of salad dressing
- Carry a spray salad dressing with you (only 1 calorie per spray)
- Let the natural flavors of ingredients like olives or beets replace salad dressing
Don’t Forget the Sodium
There is so much salt in packaged and restaurant foods that it is hard to stay under the 2,400 milligram recommended daily value.
The good news is that there are many lower-sodium alternatives on the market. Read the labels when purchasing soups, pasta sauces, and other canned foods. You will be surprised at how tasty the lower-sodium versions can be.
Another good tip is to use no-calorie, low-sodium seasonng blends in place of salt. Try interested blends like lemon pepper, Mrs. Dash, or Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Magic Salt Free Seasoning.
See, there’s no need to be boring..you just need to strategic in your choices. Experiment with some of these ideas and lighten up your life!
