Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Portion Distortion


If your health goal is to lose body fat and reduce your overall body weight, the only way to do this is to put less energy into your body than you use each day.

There is no magic pill or product that will make it effortless; you need to eat less than you currently do while making sure all that you do eat is fresh, unprocessed, healthy food.


People who are obese or morbidly obese are likely used to eating portion sizes that are larger than average and more than their body actually needs.
Portion sizes have increased, while our daily activity levels have dropped, making it more difficult to accurately judge a normal sized portion and easier to gain unnecessary weight.

From cookbooks reducing the amount of servings per person to "quick-service restaurants" Super-Sizing their "meals" for an extra $1, the amount of food that now constitutes a "serving" has increased.
Look through your mother's or grandmother's cookbooks and you will also find the portion size of meals was less than today.

The only place this may change is in the serving size on the nutritional panel: eg. 1 serve of corn chips equals about 5 chips... this is still approximately 200 calories, and I ask you, when have you ever stopped at 5?


In this context, the large proportion of our population that are obese, have heart disease, type II diabetes and other "lifestyle diseases", is no great mystery.

This link to the US Department of Health & Human Services shows how portion sized in America have increased in the past 20 years.
Take the quiz & see how accurately you can judge the energy in each portion and how much activity is required to match that energy intake.

I encourage you to think critically about the portion size and composition of the food you eat and make appropriate changes to reduce your food intake, do more physical activity and watch your health & body change... for the better!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.