It’s easy to think that you’re eating correct portion sizes.
You measure a salmon filet by the size of your palm and judge peanut butter you spread on toast to be no more than a teaspoon.
Yet, studies have found that most people underestimate their portion sizes, especially for high-calorie foods such as peanut butter, nuts, sauces and salad dressings.
If you’re hungry, you’ll miscalculate portion sizes to a greater degree than you would after eating a meal.
Weighing food is a good way to keep portions in check and may make you more aware of portion sizes.
A national survey of more than 6,000 adults showed that people who measured their food were more successful at losing weight and keeping it off than those who did not.
Enter the food scale, a tool I often recommend to my clients.
which could be quite scary for some people, mostly because they don’t want to be the person who always eats out of food containers.
Do you have to do it for rest of your life? NO
Do you have to do it to achieve your fat loss goal and keep them off? YES.
when it comes to weighting your food- like any other habits-you need to know where you are, that’s why we divide them in 5 different phases.
Phase 1: Zero plan awareness
Phase 2: Jumping plan to plan, diet to diet.
Phase 3: Getting help
Phase 4: Optimizing the chosen plan
Phase 5: Lifestyle
Let’s start shall we?
Phase 1: Zero plan awareness
You have never been on a diet before.
You would like to start, but you don’t know where to begin.
I promise you this WORKS.
Since there are so many diets out there, It’s difficult to find out which one would work for you, and trying them all will make you confuse.
You end up having a bad relationship with food or a certain food groups.
GOOD NEWS
But here is a good news: one thing all diets have in common is consuming less calories than what you burn.This is the golden rule of any diet.
If you are at this phase here is what to do :
Start weighing high calories foods such as oils, nuts, peanut butter (any kind of nut butters) salad dressing, granola (even home made ones)
Weighing them alone is definitely not enough, remember we are trying to reduce the calorie consumption, so we need to have a reference that how much is enough.
The best option is to stick with their serving which is written on the label and I’m sure 99.8% of time you go over the serving size. Am i right?
if you want to build a great foundation and never come back to this phase again it is time to start your food journal.
something people really hate to do. After you do it for a few days, you’ll see why. But, it works.
Know where your are when it comes to eating habits.
Write down the amount of your high calorie foods for a week.
The week after try the same food but stick to the serving size, you see the difference? it’s a lot right?
Follow this phase for a month, while tracking your weight and body measurements weekly.
A simple example of how weighing high calorie food can effect your fat-loss.
