Power of the Plate
What we put on our plate we eat. I noticed that no matter how much food I put on my plate, I tend to eat it. There was no logic to the approach, just pile it on. Maybe I would just put food on the plate until the plate looked full.
Bearing in mind that the science says that our stomachs don’t tell our brains that we’re full until 20 mins after the food has been eaten. This means I could carry on eating for 20 mins after I’m full.
Taking control of the volume of food I eat could be done fairly simply with the plate. But how could I do this? A plate’s a plate.
Ah no it’s not. Smaller plates! I got myself a smaller plate. The idea was that I could still fill the plate but because it is a smaller plate the amount of food would be less.
Worth a try?
And remember all these ideas are just that, ideas. It might work for you it might not. The approach is to experiment and find out what work for you. So anyway, I tried the smaller plate.
Did I notice a reduction in food volume? Not really. Did I feel full at the end of the meal? Yes.
Was the plate full? Yes.
Now remember the idea is not to make dramatic changes that feel like dieting. The idea is to make small changes that you’d hardly notice. This one I hardly noticed. But if it means eating 50 – 150 calories less per meal, that means 350 – 1050 per week. And over 3 months that could make a difference. And again we’re looking for long term change not quick fixes that don’t work.
I’ve been doing smaller plates for two years now and I have not noticed the difference in how full I feel at the end of the meal. It feels the same. But I have noticed that my weight firstly stopped going up and more recently has dropped. 🙂