Healthy Eating Should Have Larger Portions, Not Smaller Ones
Portion control is overblown. If you are trying to eat healthy foods, small portions are likely to do more harm than help. Does it sound the other way around? Think about this: if your “healthy” meal is so small that it’s more like a snack, you’re just setting yourself up for failure at the end of the day.
It’s not hard to find lists of “healthy meals” with 500 , 400, or even 300 calories. They make good headlines for readers who have unrealistic expectations (or are poor at math, but more on that below). But when you have one of them, what you eat is not food. This is an appetizer. Later, you will still be hungry and in desperation, run to the vending machine.
Manufacturers love “portion control,” meaning fewer calories, because they can make the same money by selling less food. (They may even charge more because you think you are eating healthier food .) All Lean Cuisine “meals” are less than 400 calories because they expect you to say “Mmm, pasta” when you see the picture chicken and broccoli Alfredo , and it’s not their problem that you will still be hungry with only 260 calories. Some restaurants have caught on, too: Panera will happily charge you four dollars for 130 calories, mostly from water .
If you are queuing at the self-service frozen yoghurt place after dinner, that is a good time to consider the portion . Whoever designs the store, the cups and the filling bar uses all the tricks to get you to serve yourself more (for example, offer only very large bowls ), and your brain tells you that when you have one of something in front of you, it is reasonable. part. (There might even be posters on the wall about how healthy frozen yogurt is.) But it’s candy-topped ice cream.
And you know what a really good way to reduce the number of calories you eat over dessert? Eat a large, hearty, and healthy dinner.
Why we make this mistake (and how to fix it)
Many people set their calories too low. For example, a 150-pound woman who only occasionally exercises and diets will still lose 2,000 calories a day. Her £ 200 boyfriend, who’s also on a diet, still needs around £ 3,000. You can calculate your own calorie needs here . (If those numbers still seem overstated, and you can swear you’re doing well with 1200 or 1500 calories, remember that you’re probably underestimating what you eat.)
For more information on the math behind weight loss, check out our post on setting sensible calorie goals , but keep in mind that simply cutting back 20% of your supportive calories won’t work for everyone, especially those with low calorie levels. begin with. Surveys show that many people of normal weight restrict what they eat andbelieve that they are overweight, although this is not the case. So this is just another way people set themselves up for failure: they set themselves a calorie goal too low when they would be doing better with a bigger goal, or with an emphasis on healthy eating rather than numbers.
Put your goal to the test and then ask yourself questions that will really help: How does this meal fit into my daily plan? Is he doing his job? When our 150-pound friend sees the 500 Calorie Healthy Lunch List, she’s going to do a little math and realizes that 500 calories will not reduce them as a lunch on her 2,000 calorie day.
She’d better cook up the recipe and eat it as a snack, or double the serving for dinner. Or she could just ditch the recipe and instead go to Chipotle, where she can buy a burrito that contains a thousand cool calories . Maybe she’ll drop the rice and add the guacamole. Stay with me here: These are over a thousand calories from beans, vegetables, meat and avocado. It’s filling, delicious, and made from much better material than the late-night snack she would eat if she tried to fool herself with just 500 calories for dinner.
Bottom line : Limit portions to only those foods that you have a reason to limit (like desserts or occasional portions of junk food). If your meal consists of healthy foods, take advantage and eat a lot.
Photos by J.D. Hancock and Ed Shipul .
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