Researchers at Pennsylvania State University are providing
some clues to help you achieve permanent weight loss. They
are looking at the effects of your food choices and how
they affect your ability to lose weight. (The influence
of food portion size and energy density on energy intake:
implications for weight management. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005
Jul;82(1 Suppl):236S-241S.)
The researchers were interested in finding out what determined
how much food people eat at each meal. You might think that
people would tend to eat until they were no longer hungry
and then stop. Or that they would eat a certain number of
calories and their body would sense they had enough and
they would stop.
But what they found was somewhat surprising. They found
that people tend to eat a meal based on how big it is.
In other words, the participants in the study were used
to eating food of a certain size. Whether half a plate,
a full plate, a small bowl or a large bowl, they found that
people tend to eat the same size meal. It is as though they
do not feel it is a full meal unless it is a certain size
portion.
The problem of meal size and weight loss is that some foods
are much denser than others. For example, fatty meats and
rich sauces are much denser than fresh fruits and vegetables.
So when you eat a full plate of fatty meats with sauces
and potatoes with gravy you are getting very calorically
dense food. It is very easy when eating this kind of food
to get excess calories. Even a small number of extra calories
will store as fat, and over the years your weight will creep
up.
As hard as it may be to believe, if you eat an extra 100
calories per day you will gain nine pounds per year. And
it takes very little of this calorically dense food to amount
to 100 calories.
The most common solution is to try to cut down on the amount
of food at each meal. But as the researchers showed, it
is difficult to cut down on meal size. When you eat a smaller
meal you do not feel satisfied.
Now, it is true that portions of foods in our modern society
have become bloated beyond all reason. A generation ago
eight ounces of soda was considered a full serving; now
you see people drinking 64 ounce cups.
It used to be that a dinner salad was a portion; now you
see restaurants serving a 2000 or 3000 calorie platter of
salad heaped with meat, bread, cheese and ladles of salad
dressing. This is more food than your body needs for an
entire day.
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