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Do you ever wonder why you’re not losing weight, despite all your best efforts? After all, you eat healthy, even when you go out to eat.
But it doesn’t matter if you eat healthy if you still think you need to clean your whole plate at every meal.
According to a new review of 61 studies by the University of Cambridge, people who are offered larger portions on larger plates consume up to 527 more calories per day than those who are offered smaller portions.
One of the lead authors of the study, Dr. Gareth Hollands, said that this finding just makes clearer the effect that environmental influences have on eating.
“Helping people to avoid ‘overserving’ themselves or others with larger portions of food or drink by reducing their size, availability, and appeal in shops, restaurants, and in the home, is likely to be a good way of helping lots of people to reduce their risk of overeating,” he said.
And while the best solution to this would be to make food manufacturers clearly demarcate serving sizes, or for restaurants to serve smaller portions, this is unlikely. This means, of course, that we have to take matters into our own hands.
Researchers from the study suggest changing your serving dishes can be enough to make a difference. When you eat at home, use salad plates instead of dinner plates. Instead of eyeballing a serving, actually measure it. Use your salad forks to eat.
These may sound like small changes, and it may sound like nitpicky eating, but before you know it you’ll have better portion control even when you’re going out to eat. And it’s not eating too little—it’s just realizing how much you ate in the first place.
And forget what your mom said. No one is making you clean your plate.
