Eat a bigger portion for better health

Volume lovers, this is for you! Yes, you can increase your portion sizes (at times) and eat healthfully. And you may even drop a few pounds.

I have spent my career studying portion sizes and its relationship to health and obesity. My research found that portion sizes in America have increased in parallel with rising rates of obesity. Large portions contain more calories than small portions and we tend to eat more food when presented with bigger sizes. Furthermore, the larger the portion, the more we underestimate how much we just ate. It’s like the oversized meal (or snack) never happened.

Portion control is, therefore, super important when it comes to managing weight.

Now here’s a positive spin on the so-called portion-size effect. If we fill up on more healthy foods, such as fruits and veggies, we don’t have to always eat less to be healthy. And at times, we may even be able to eat more.

According to this  study conducted by researchers at Deakin University in Australia, eating larger portions of food might be a good thing at times.

The researchers designed two complementary experiments. In the first one, the team gave 150 university students either a large or a small portion of healthy apple chips or unhealthy potato chips. The subjects given the bigger portion of chips—including the healthy apple chips— ate significantly more than those served the smaller portion.

In the second study, the researchers gave nearly 80 participants either a small or a large bag of baby carrots. Again, those with the larger bag ate more of the healthful snack.

These findings offer some new ways which may help to improve our eating habits. The authors write, “The results of our current study tell us that this portion size effect also holds true with healthy foods, which opens up the potential for adjusting portion size when trying to encourage healthier eating habits.”

As I write in my book Finally Full, Finally Slim, at times, we can eat more, be healthy, and still lose weight. I devote several chapters of my book to this phenomenon. In one chapter “Supersize This, Downsize That,” I present ways where we can eat better by increasing our fruit and veggie consumption while still eating our favorite treats, just eating less of them.

This trick is also great if you want to get your kids to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Here are some simple tips you can incorporate into your everyday life. And these tricks work great during the holiday season too.

1.Start your meal with a healthy salad and eat it off of a large plate. This can help fill you up so that you will be satisfied with a smaller portion of meat and potatoes as your main course.

2. When eating pasta, add in a healthy serving of your favorite veggies. Or, go halfsies—half pasta and half spiralized veggies.

3. Include a fruit or veggie with each meal and you won’t have to shrink your entire portion. Add a cup of mixed berries to your one-cup portion of oatmeal, for example, and you will feel super satisfied.

4. Fill at least half of your plate with healthy vegetables. Enjoy a smaller portion of your favorite protein and starch dish. You don’t have to ban the potatoes altogether.

5. Craving that cookie for dessert? Enjoy it. And stick with just one. Enjoy a bowl of your favorite fresh fruit instead of grabbing for that second cookie.

Enjoy!