Portion control.

[catherinecherub]

I noticed this topic in another thread.
Portion control is an effective tool in weight loss and will help to maintain your weight when you get to your ideal goal.
Several experiments have shown that how much you eat depends on how much is on your plate. If you are eating to excess then this will happen with all your meals. Some people eat their meals off a very large plate whereas others have found that a smaller plate helps with the weight loss.

Portions of popular foods have increased over the years and some blame the obesity rise on this. Health sites refer to this as portion distortion and has become the norm for some as they like value for money.

This article explains portion distortion.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-portion-distortion.htm


The May Clinic explains portion control.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/multimedia/portion-control/sls-20076148

As I follow the low G.I. diet then I also follow portion control. This involves dividing my plate as follows, 25% with a low G.I. carb that I can tolerate because my meter says so, 25% protein and 50% vegetables. If appropriate I may have a side salad as well or some soup for a starter.

Another tip is to eat slowly and try and make your meal last up to 20 minutes. This can be difficult if you are hungry but if you don't savour every mouthful and chew it well rather than scoffing it down then your digestion will have a hard time processing your food. Some people complain that they are hungry after a meal but if you can slow down the process you will find that you feel fuller for longer.

 

[Totto]

But you may have to refill your plate if you are still not full, don't you? Or are you meant not to eat until you are satiated?

Hunger is a powerful force.

 

[AlexMBrennan]

The point is that using a smaller plate will make you want to eat less I.e. using a larger plate will result in you eating more whilst feeling just as sated as someone using a smaller plate. http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/outreach/large-plates.html

 

[pavlosn]

But you may have to refill your plate if you are still not full, don't you? Or are you meant not to eat until you are satiated?

Hunger is a powerful force.

My grandma used to say that one should always leave the table still feeling a little bid hungry. She lived to be 97 so she probably was doing something right.





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[Dillinger]

The point is that using a smaller plate will make you want to eat less I.e. using a larger plate will result in you eating more whilst feeling just as sated as someone using a smaller plate. http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/outreach/large-plates.html

That sounds nice; but it is obviously not true - one can look to one's own experience of eating and hunger and conclude that plate size is pretty irrelevant. There might be subtle influences on the satiated but if you are hungry then whether your plate is the size of the table or of a coffee cup won't really matter. What matters is your leptin response telling your brain that you have eaten enough.

Hunger is, I would suggest, a key hormonal response that can barely be overridden by conscious will; if it weren't your line would have died out long ago in competition with those who really acted on being hungry...

Dillinger

p.s. what is a sad statical world?

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

I agree that plate size is irrelevant. (Especially if it contains nutritious food that will actually do you good. Food is not an enemy)

Eat when you are hungry and stop when you're not.

Don't eat because you are bored, peed off, sad....that is when overconsumption occurs.

 

[noblehead]

Some great links there.

Portion control is important to lose weight and keep it steady and is also a useful tool in diabetes management., I admittedly use to go back for seconds or overload my plate mainly due to greed more than anything else, since cutting back on my weight a few years back I now just stick to 3 main meals and don't snack in-between, by not overloading my plate and going back for more I've managed to keep the weight off that I lost

 

[catherinecherub]

This article explains how digestive hormones hormones are involved in you feeling full.

Scientists have known for some time that a full stomach is only part of what causes someone to feel satisfied after a meal, the brain must receive a series of signals from digestive hormones. It takes 20 minutes for these signals to reach the brain. Obese people may be leptin resistant.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-eating-slowly-may-help-you-feel-full-faster-20101019605

Wether you can or cannot practice portion control is not what this thread is about. This topic was started by me due to people saying, in another thread, that they did not understand portion control

 

[pavlosn]

A few thoughts on the subject of hunger, more questions than answers

- How fine tuned is our sense of hunger

- Do we only continue to feel hungry to the point were we have consumed sufficient food to satisfy our body's nutrient needs or

- Do we continue to feel hungry even past this point until we consume the same bulk of food or calories that we have grown accustomed to through experience

- If we habitually consume more than we strictly need, will the body continue to feel hungry until this increased expectation of food is met, even if this excess food is not needed and will only be stored as fat.

- Is the opposite true? Can we gradually teach our body to stop feeling hungry at a lower ( but still nutritionally sufficient) level of food consumption than the previous excessive level?

The growing obesity epidemic would suggest that our feeling of hunger is not a very sensitive and reliable tool in assessing our food intake needs.

Pavlos



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[donnellysdogs]

It is known and recommended that if you think you are hungry that your body will respond better to drinking water than food to make it feel full up.

My plate size is a side plate for my main meals and I hate water but will drink it afterwards if I am still thinking I am thirsty. Apart from that I will have fruit.




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[mo1905]

Clearly the brain does not tell everyone to stop eating when they're full otherwise we would not be turning into a nation of obese people. It depends what you're eating and on the individual. If it is something enjoyable you can eat more. However, I would quickly feel full if I had a huge plate of cabbage in front of me. I also have a Beagle who would continue to eat as long as I put food in front of her ( OK, off subject a little I guess ).


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[Bluetit1802]

Hunger can be very much psychological. You expect to be hungry and therefore you are. If you have just eaten a balanced meal, you are not hungry. You may be hungry later on, in the hour before your next meal is due, and that is where a protein snack might be useful. I don't snack. I never have at any time in my life. If I feel hungry I drink water. In fact, I am surgically attached to a glass of water all day, not because I'm hungry but because I like water.

 

[Bluetit1802]

Clearly the brain does not tell everyone to stop eating when they're full otherwise we would not be turning into a nation of obese people. It depends what you're eating and on the individual. If it is something enjoyable you can eat more. However, I would quickly feel full if I had a huge plate of cabbage in front of me. I also have a Beagle who would continue to eat as long as I put food in front of her ( OK, off subject a little I guess ).


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My mother would have called this greed, not hunger.

Personally I would be sick if I had a plate of cabbage in front of me! Can't stand the stuff.

 

[donnellysdogs]

Trouble is the transfats and sugars and even diet drinks are now linked to making people want more food...

My hubby and I had a mcdonalds when we had work guys in recently, the next day I drove past and thought... Mmm could do with some more fat!!! Yet, normally on my own and without takeaways I wouldnt normally even think about having a mcdonalds....




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[mo1905]

Exactly, some people are just greedy. Doesn't matter what size plate they have. There may be some scientific explanation or hormone imbalance, I don't know. Point is, lots of people don't either recognise or act on the "full" feeling.


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[phoenix]

My grandma used to say that one should always leave the table still feeling a little bid hungry. She lived to be 97 so she probably was doing something right.

" And those who live in areas where they have the most long lived people, do exactly that

“Hara hachi bu” – the Okinawan, 2500-year old Confucian mantra said before meals reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then they don’t eat any more the rest of the day" http://www.bluezones.com/live-longer/power-9/

In 'my' bit of France, adults don't snack and although food plays an important part of their culture and lunch is sacrosanct they really don't seem to eat big portions .
I find that I can eat a two or three course meal from a typical restaurant lunchtime menu but often give up on a one course meal in a UK restaurant.

The BHF looked at portion distortion in the UK comparing 1993 to 2013, a few things have got smaller but most have increased with some serving sizes doubling.
In the report they also cite a study which showed that people do indeed eat to the portion they are given, and didn't compensate for a56% larger portion by eating less later in the day . There were no systematic differences in peoples perceptions of hunger or fullness. https://www.bhf.org.uk/media/news-from-the-bhf/portion-distortion.aspx
One recent study showed that young children will not only serve themselves more but will also eat more when given an adult sized plate. They don't necessarily eat everything on the plate so it's not just because they feel that they are expected to empty the plate( I noticed another recent study that said chimps did it too)

I use very much the same system as Catherine for portion control. It is what I was shown by the dietitian here (together with weighing starches for those of us on insulin. I adopted it because I was following instructions and as I used a fixed insulin dose was scared stiff of getting things wrong and eating too much or too little. Though I can and do vary things a bit now I still tend to stick to the same pattern for normal day to day meals,
.I've been there to translate when she has worked with people with T2. She uses the same basic model, just varying slightly the 'thickness' of things of the plate or the size of the protein source and/or perhaps the amount of dairy

 

[Dillinger]

I don't think it is about greed @mo1905 - if it were why would there be so many unhappy fat people? Who after all wants to be fat?

Here is quite a good discussion about Leptin (the hormone that tells us we are full) and in particular how fructose inhibits that hormone.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/leptin/#axzz2wECQpapQ

We'd be quite surprised, I hope, if people started claiming height was related to a personality trait or sin as we do with obesity (being the assumed product of the sins of greed and sloth). Short people are like that because they are envious, or the like. So, why are we so willing to accept that fat people are there because of some moral failing?

As I said who wants to be fat? There is such pressure on us all to skinny that if it were merely a case of making a conscious decision not to be wicked we would not see obesity anywhere.

Regards

Dillinger

 

[mo1905]

Dillinger, I sort of get your point but some people are just greedy. As for not being happy, I agree. Maybe that is just a by product. Most people don't wish to become alcoholic or drug addicted but it happens. As I mentioned earlier, there may be a reason and perhaps Leptin has something to do with it but I'm not wise enough to pretend to know about that

 

[Alanp35]

I don't want to throw fuel on this fire BUT
I understand that food,for some people, is a compulsion, almost like an addiction over which they have little control or perhaps sporadic control at best.




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[noblehead]

I don't want to throw fuel on this fire BUT
I understand that food,for some people, is a compulsion, almost like an addiction over which they have little control or perhaps sporadic control at best.

Yes of course Alan, we also have Emotional Eating and there's a good explanation in the following:

http://www.helpguide.org/life/emotional_eating_stress_cravings.htm