One of the major factors that can help you to achieve your weight loss goals and maintain a healthy body weight is eating good quality nutrition in appropriate portions. Portion control directly helps you to lose weight by consciously taking care of the number of total calories consumed in a day. When you carefully monitor your portion sizes, you decrease the amount of food that you eat. This decrease in food intake also represents an overall decrease in the number of calories that you eat, provided that you eat the same foods that you did previously. This makes it easier for you to burn off those calories through less activity. You'll therefore begin to gain weight more slowly or, ideally, maintain or even lose weight.

Proper Portion Control

Proper and healthy portion control is characterized by moderation. While it's important to not eat too much of any particular type of food, it's also equally important to avoid eating too little. Learn about the recommended serving sizes of various types of food, and do your best to adhere to them. This will ensure that you are eating a proper amount and that your body is fully nourished. It is also important that you must not limit the amount of food that you eat too severely when you exercise portion control. Also the quality of food consumed is equally important as the portion. Eating moderate portions of only food that is unhealthy in general will not necessarily yield you good results in terms of weight loss or a healthy body composition

3 Simple Tricks Of Managing Portion Size

There are three easy ways to manage portion size:

1. Use the ‘Plate Method'- Long employed by nutritionists and dietitians, this simple technique makes portion sizing your dinner meal a snap. First, mentally divide your plate in half. On half of your plate, put steamed/sautéed/cooked vegetables. For the other half, mentally divide it in half again. On the remaining areas (each a quarter of your plate), place your starch (ideally a whole grain like brown rice/chapatti/oats/suji) and lean protein like grilled meat, fish, chicken or egg. 1% portion should be from low fat dairy products as well. Read to know more how protein rich breakfast helps you lose weight?

2.  Break Leftovers Down- Instead of using one large container to store leftovers such as casseroles, side dishes, or pasta, why not separate them into individually-sized containers. That way, when you reach in the fridge to find something to reheat, you're retrieving just enough for one helping. Breaking down meal-sized servings into single servings will help you limit your food intake with no additional effort.

3. Become a Good Eyeballer- Learn to "eyeball" standard portion sizes and stick to them when dining out or dishing up meals.

Keep these tips in mind: About 85 gms or 3 oz. of meat is the size of a deck of cards or an audio tape; 28.3gms or 1 oz. of meat is the size of a matchbook; 1 cup of potatoes, rice or pasta looks like a tennis ball, etc.

Helpful hints for measuring portions:

When you don’t have measuring cups or scales available, use your hands or common items to figure out reasonable portion sizes. See the chart below.

ItemAmountOne Serving

Palm of hand

Cell phone

2.5 oz (75 g)

Meat

Chicken

Fish

Computer mouse½ cup (125 gms) cooked

Pasta

Rice

Medium Potato

Tennis ball¾ cup (175 gms) cooked

Yogurt

Hot cereal

Tofu

Thumb tip1 tsp (5 ml)

Butter

Oil

2 Thumb tips1.5 oz (50 g)CheeseBoth palms open2 cups (300gms)Vegetables (2 servings)

By practicing these tips on a regular basis, you can become a regular practitioner of  portion control and can achieve a healthy lifestyle altogether!