The Simple Way To Control Portions

Sometimes it seems that we're faced with oversized portions at every meal or snack. Fast food places offer us a chance to "up size" our meals. Movie theaters sell gigantic, jumbo tubs of buttery popcorn. Chain restaurants advertise all-you-can-eat dinners. In fact, studies suggest that increased portion sizes are occurring even in our own homes. We've come to assume that giant bagels, enormous muffins and heaping plates of pasta are actually the servings we should be eating.

Our oversized portions may be one reason we have difficulty losing weight. Fortunately, there's a simple way to control your portions--and it doesn't require measuring cups or food scales. The trick: Use smaller dishes and utensils!

Research has found that serving food on smaller plates and eating it with a smaller fork or spoon actually creates the illusion of more food, and we end up consuming fewer calories overall.

So use a small cereal bowl instead of a big soup bowl the next time you're eating stew. Or serve your evening meal on a smaller luncheon plate instead of a larger dinner plate. Other ways to slow down your meals--and lower your calorie consumption--include using a salad fork instead of a dinner fork and using a teaspoon instead of a soup spoon.

By simply altering the size of your dinnerware, you'll automatically control the size of your food portions. And that can mean easily trimming extra calories from every meal and snack.