It’s a fact that to lose weight, one should get into a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories and burn off extra by exercising and being active. And portion control is an essential aspect to achieve calorie deficit. Portion control also involves being aware of the correct amount of food and serving sizes so that you do not fall out of calorie deficit. To achieve calorie deficit, it’s completely wrong to go into starvation mode or follow crash diets because they would be counterproductive and you may actually end up gaining weight. Calorie deficit can be easily be achieved without compromising on nutrition by practicing portion control, without actually starving through the day. In this post, we list out 10 ways to cut portion sizes without getting hungry all over again.

1. Have a Bowl of Salad or Vegetable Soup Before Meals: Starting lunch and dinner meals with a homemade vegetable soup or a bowl of salad may help you reduce your overall calorie intake and help you have a good control over the portion.
2. Make Sure you Weigh Cooking Oil and Dry Food: You can cut load of calories by cutting back on cooking oil, even if it’s the healthiest oil on the planet (yes even olive oil). Also, measuring dry foods such pasta and rice before cooking is important because they tend to swell up after cooking.
3. Quit the Clean Plate Club: “Clean your plate before you get up” has been a practice that has been ingrained from our childhood to make sure we get adequate nourishment during our growing years and more importantly, to ensure that no food gets wasted. Following up the habit of finishing up everything on the dinner plate can give way to unhealthy eating habits, disruption of body’s hunger-fullness mechanism, paving the way to weight gain and obesity-related diseases. It also does not help that a majority of us are eating out of big 10 and 12 inch plates. A tendency to finish up all the food that’s there on the plate even after the hunger has been satiated is called the “clean plate syndrome” and if you have a propensity to do the same, you are now in the “Clean Plate Club.” This practice can lead to overeating, overserving, and oversized portions – which would all lead to weight gain. If you belong to the above-mentioned club, do not overserve food that you would later struggle to finish and do not hesitate to pack the extra portions as leftovers,
4. Practice Mindful Eating: Mindful eating involves eating in peace, being aware of the texture and quantity of food. Also, take smaller bites and eat slowly. Most people who eat slowly feel satiated within a few bites and feel fuller with less food.

5. Swap Bowl with Dinner Plate: It’s easy to trick your brain to eat less when you eat from a bowl than from a plate. You would feel full when you eat from a small bowl with the same quantity of food that you eat from a larger plate. Also, the bowl’s weight in hand will give you the feeling that you are consuming more food. So, dump the dinner plate and pick that bowl.
6. Fill Half Plate with Veggies: Fill half of your plate with low-calorie vegetables such as spinach, mushroom, capsicum, cauliflower, etc., which have fewer calories and at the same time provide a whole lot of nutrition.
7. Cook your Own Meals: It’s a known fact that food joints and restaurants pack a lot of portion and calories in a single serving. When we cook our own meals, it’s easy to control the ingredients that go into dishes, and have control over the portions as well.
8. Try Water Preloading: Water preloading is a healthy and almost effortless way to aid weight loss. In this strategy, experts recommend to consume 500 ml of plain water half an hour before each meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Such a quantity of water before the meal will significantly stretch your tummy and as a result, there would be lesser release of the hunger hormone “ghrelin.” This means you would feel full with less food and fewer calorie intake. It is an effective strategy to tackle overeating. Also, frequent hunger pangs are most probably caused due to dehydration and if you can provide your body with more H2O, you can lose weight rather effectively.

9. Never watch TV or browse through phone while eating: We all tend to let go of mindful eating and lose control over portion while having food while watching TV or browsing on phone. You would tend to ignore all signals from your brain that you are full while watching tv or browsing through Facebook. You will get easily distracted and end up consuming more food, so eat in peace and mindfully.

Of course if you follow the right kind of diet, it would encourage you to eat healthy meals, without food deprivation, taking into consideration all your nutritional requirements, keeping you in calorie deficit by helping you portion control, so that you can drop extra pounds and burn fat. You can follow the Rati Beauty diet on the Rati Beauty app with meal plans that encourage you to eat the right kind of food, in the right quantity, with precise weight loss strategies. Find more details about the diet plans by downloading the Rati Beauty app on your phone.

9 Ways to Quit the Clean Plate Club
How to Stay on Track to Achieve Weight Loss

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