Portion Control

The basis for the Plate Method for Good Nutrition and Weight Loss is relying on portion control to limit the calories you eat.  It is very simple but not that easy.  There are people out there who have no trouble at all with portion control, but not many. For most of us, there is a big difference between what we need to eat, and what we want to eat. And a lot of the time, unless we're really strict with ourselves, want is going to win out over need.

We are using tableware that is smaller than what is commonly used nowadays.  There is a significant body of work in the scientific literature that backs up the effectiveness of this approach.  Let me tell you about one such study.

So a couple of guys at University of Pennsylvania, Andrew Geier and Paul Rozin, actually get paid to study this stuff. They've conducted studies on "unit bias"--how people decide that a particular portion of food is the right amount, and how that influences how much food people eat.

In one study, they put a large mixing bowl of M&M's at the concierge desk of an apartment building. Below the bowl hung a sign that read "Eat Your Fill" with "please use the spoon to serve yourself" written underneath.

The tricky researchers sometimes set out a small spoon for people to use, and sometimes a large one.

When there was a small spoon, most people took a single scoop, even though the sign encouraged them to "eat their fill." But when the spoon was larger, they'd take a much bigger scoop and eat twice as many M&M's.

"It is more than just people afraid of appearing greedy," said one of the sneaky scientists. "They didn't know they were being observed. We have a culturally enforced 'consumption norm,' which promotes both the tendency to complete eating a unit and the idea that a single unit is the proper amount to eat."

So, dear readers, don’t underestimate the power of the plate to get you where you want to be.

Let me know how the plates are working.

Paul