Tips to Eat Less/ Portion Control

As everyone knows, eat less and you will lose more weight. One of my biggest problems while I was losing weight was portion control. I'd always heard a lot about portion control, but I never really knew how to control my portions and not still be hungry once I was finished eating. Over time, I slowly changed my eating habits and began to realize I was really in control of my portions. Recently I had been slipping and eating a little too much, so I thought I would share some things I do to control my portions and eat only what I need to satisfy my hunger. This will help me make these practices more a part of my life again and hopefully help anyone who reads them learn a thing or two.

Order with your brain, not with your hunger...

This goes for eating out and when making a meal or snack at home. A lot of the time you hear people order or make too much food and say "I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach!" For many of these people, that's where it ends. They stop eating when they're full and that's that. For someone who is loves food as much as I do, when I run into this problem, I usually eat until the plate is clear, or I physically can't eat another bite. This happens to me whether I'm on a diet or not. Like most people, I love the taste of food and it's hard for me to know exactly when I'm full until about 10 minutes after I'm finished stuffing my face.

I found that by putting hunger aside and ordering or planning my meal with my brain rather than my taste buds and growling belly, this becomes easy to control. When doing this, it's always better to order or make less than it is to order or make more. If I think I want two sandwiches, and I only make one, by the time I finish that sandwich and get up to make another one, I will know whether I'm full or not. If there are two sandwiches in front of me, I'm going to knock them both out before my fullness even catches up with my brain.

Exercise before, not after...

With the exception of breakfast, you should always do your exercises before a meal as opposed to after. I don't know the science behind this, but all I know is when I'm done exercising, I feel this sense of progress and I don't want to mess it up by eating too much or having a bad meal. Besides that, my body also craves certain nutrients and it physically feels good to consume healthier foods. One other thing that I notice is that my stomach feels somewhat full after exercising, but this could be in my head.

One of the motivators that can help your eating habits right after an exercise is momentum. When I was losing weight, the more progress I made, the more I felt I had to stay with my plan because the gap was closing between my current health and my goal. If you break this down, you can use this momentum after a workout. You just did one healthy activity, now you are in the position to either double the impact by eating healthy, or cancel it out by eating poorly. Exercising then avoiding guilt by eating healthy is a lot better than eating poorly then feeling guilty and exercising.

The last benefit, of course is that by working out on an empty stomach, your body will be stuck burning stored fat for energy. **Don't skip breakfast though! I covered the reason for that in my book, so read the eating section if you need more info.

Drink a lot of 0 calorie beverage with your meal...

I prefer diet coke, but I've had people go crazy on me about the effects of artificial sweeteners. I'm not going to tell you what to drink here, but unsweetened iced tea and water work great for this.

When I'm eating a meal, I've trained myself to drink a lot of calorie free liquid so I become full faster. You don't have to drown yourself, but any space you fill in your belly helps to ease your hunger (at least temporarily, until you can get away from the food).

Eat slower, if you can...

This honestly does not work for me all of the time. Sometimes if I'm not to hungry I can do this, but sometimes I can't control how fast I eat because the food is so good =) If you can do this, it definitely works to allow your body to alert you as soon as you've become full. Give it a shot.

Eat your meals on time...

I don't eat several small meals throughout the day because I don't want to obsess over an eating schedule. This has been proven to speed up metabolism and help your digestive system be more productive, but it's not something I personally do. If you do it, great. If you want an extra push in your diet, have the time, and can plan 6 small meals a day, great!

I find that when it comes to an eating schedule, the most important thing is to eat on time. What time? Well this varies depending on your schedule and when you're active. What I do is eat my breakfast when I first wake up, this way I'm hungry for lunch at a reasonable time. I make sure to not eat lunch too late or too early. Then I am hungry for dinner at a reasonable time. I snack sometimes in between meals to make it to the next meal.

The consequences of not eating on time usually catch up with you at dinner. If you eat lunch too late, you won't be hungry for dinner until later in the evening. The More time you have to digest your food before you go to bed, the better, but eating too early can also be bad. If you eat lunch too early and end up having an early dinner, it makes it really easy to want to snack later in the evening, even right before bed.

These are just a few of the tricks that have worked to control my eating in one way or another. If you have any other useful tips, feel free to share them in the comments. I would love to hear!