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Tips On Mastering Portion Control

With so much talk about ingredients and chemicals and sinister marketing campaigns, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that portion sizes for many foods these days are huge. Even without the whole “supersizing” element, it is easy to eat far more than necessary and turbo boost your caloric intake. Even if you are eating foods that aren’t particularly unhealthy, eating too much will create a “calories in, calories out” situation where you’re not burning off the calories you are consuming. If you have questions about nutrition, contact our weight loss team.

If They Serve It; We Will Eat

Studies conducted by Brown University showed that volunteers would consistently eat more if they were given more. This included regular meals and snacks. In a snack study, one group of students received snacks that totaled 4,350 calories and another got snacks totaling 8,750 calories.

Each group was told to eat as much as they wanted and not eat any other snacks over a three-day period. In the end, the group that had the snacks totaling 8,750 calories consumed 81 percent more calories. Basically, in the majority of cases people will eat more food, if more food is presented to them.

Into the Time Machine

One way to become a master of portion control is to follow portion control metrics from our past, before they were all increased or disregarded altogether. The American Diabetes Association offers portion guidelines that are more in line with the way things used to be. If you can follow these tips, you’ll probably see your waistline start shrinking.

A serving of meat, chicken or fish that is 3 oz. is about the size of a deck of cards. A ½-cup serving of potatoes or canned fruit is roughly the size of half a tennis ball. If you want a 1 oz. serving of cheese it should be the size of your thumb, and a one-cup serving of fresh greens, milk or yogurt is the size of your fist. If you do end up in a situation where the portions are larger than they should be, portion the meal yourself and bring the rest home for later, or split it with someone else.

Helpful Tips to Smaller Portions

You can reduce the amount you eat and lose weight by following a few simple steps. The first is to put down your spoon or fork after each mouthful of food. This will stop you from shoveling it in, like so many of us are prone to do. Next, chew your food slowly and thoroughly, at least 20 to 25 times. And the most important, when you start to feel even the slightest bit full, stop eating. If you follow these tips, your portions will shrink and so will your waistline.

If your ready to get started with a weight loss program – give our team a call today!

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Can Bad Bugs Make You Fat?

Are bacteria to blame for your elastic-waist jeans and poolside muumuu? Did microbes make you devour double bowls of triple-fudge ice cream last night?

It only sounds like a horror movie. A growing stack of research suggests that the mysterious, microscopic “zoo” in your digestive system plays a role in how slim — or pudgy — you are. But don’t even think about trying to figure out which of the countless “probiotic” pills out there might get you into smaller jeans.

We’ve Got a Saner Bug-Control Plan.

The human body hosts trillions of tiny critters, most of who hang out in your intestines. Most are beneficial bugs called probiotics. They break down food, help you absorb certain nutrients, keep your immune system firing on all cylinders, and fend off invaders that can cause a nasty case of the runs. They can even protect against stomach ulcers and urinary tract infections and ease irritable bowel syndrome.

But here’s the thing: There’s now surprising evidence that the wrong gut bugs could make you fat. In one study, obese people were three times more likely than lean folks to have a virus called Ad-36 in their digestive tracts — a bug known to make chickens fatter. Also, some intestinal bacteria seem to trigger bigger appetites and a tendency to store more calories as fat. Researchers even think “fat bugs” might plump you up by pulling more calories from the food you eat.

Happily, there’s also a bit of evidence that good bugs might help you slim down in some circumstances. Among extremely overweight people who had weight loss surgery, those who took a probiotic supplement lost weight faster. And women who took a probiotic during pregnancy had less body fat overall — and less dangerous belly fat — after giving birth than pregnant women who didn’t take probiotics, even though they all followed the same diet.

A whole industry has grown up around probiotic supplements, including probiotic-enhanced foods and “prebiotics,” types of fiber that promote the growth of good bugs. Some products are good. Others are still in question. For example, we don’t yet know enough about the healthiest mix of microbes for weight loss. What we do know: Good bugs are good for your body. So it’s worth taking these steps to keep ’em happy and working hard inside you:

Feed them their favorite foods. It’s way easier to cultivate the good bacteria you already have than to import replacements. To encourage your good bugs to be fruitful and prosper, feed them special prebiotic fibers called inulin and oligosaccharides (don’t try saying either three times fast). And where do you get these yummy fibers? Pretty simple: bananas, asparagus, onions, and garlic; also, dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichokes, and jicama. All are top sources of good prebiotic fibers. Apples may help, too, because they contain pectin, another beneficial prebiotic fiber. And there are some prebiotics in barley, berries, tomatoes, honey, flaxseeds, and beans, too.

Take a probiotic. While you can get probiotics in food pretty easily by consistently eating low-fat yogurt with live active cultures, popping a probiotic supplement is more reliable. We recommend taking one regularly if you’re healthy. The trick is to find formulas that can survive your stomach’s digestive fluids.

We like Premier Labs Probiotic and Galactan Prebiotic powder because it can survive even (burp) the gnarliest mix of stomach acids. If it helps keep you slim and healthy, that’s quite a trade-off.