Reduce your portion sizes
The sizes of your portions affect how many calories you're getting: Twice the amount of food means twice the number of calories. To reduce how much food you eat, and therefore how many calories you consume, try these tips:
- Serve smaller portions. At the beginning of a meal, take slightly less than what you think you'll eat. You can always have seconds, if necessary.
- See what you eat. Eating directly from a container gives you no sense of how much you're eating. Seeing food on a plate or in a bowl keeps you aware of how much you're eating. Consider measuring your food with a measuring cup or scale to see how much you are actually eating.
- Check food labels. Be sure to check food labels for the serving size and number of calories per serving. You may find that the small bag of chips you eat with lunch every day, for example, is two servings, doubling the calories listed on the label.
- Don't feel obligated to clean your plate. Stop eating as soon as you feel full. Those extra bites of food that you're trying not to waste add unneeded calories.
