In the past 40 years, we’ve added 570 calories a day to our diets, and according to research at the University of North Carolina, half of those calories can be attributed to larger portions. Today’s portion sizes can be more than triple what the USDA recommends!
Take pasta for example: the recommended serving size is about one cup. Guess what the standard size is from a restaurant…about 3 cups! Some pasta dishes are enough to feed an entire family, containing more calories than you need in an entire day. It’s easy to serve yourself an appropriate, one-cup serving at home, but it can be difficult to know what one serving is when you’re staring at a huge bowl of pasta and meatballs at a restaurant. Many restaurants offer lunch and half-size portions, which are smaller and take away a lot of the guess work. If you don’t see half sizes on the menu, ask your server to give you just one cup of pasta, and box up the rest. There is nothing wrong with asking for what you want! Special requests are not only acceptable, they’re pretty much standard nowadays, so you shouldn’t feel guilty.
Snack sizes are also about double what they used to be. And even though the labels on the snack-sized bag may say they serve two or more portions, most people eat the entire bag themselves – it is a “snack size”, after all! Unfortunately, that extra serving or two of chips can add up, and really do some damage. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found for every additional serving of chips a person consumes daily, they gain an additional two pounds every four years. The larger the bag, the easier it is to do. Avoid potato chips if you can, or choose popped chips instead. There are plenty of healthier options out there that taste just as good. Or, look for the smallest, single-serving bags of chips.
Steak, ice cream, soda, and salad dressing are other items notorious for being supersized in today’s food industry (and perhaps at home, too). Try and cut soda from your diet completely; there’s just no nutritional value to it (just take a look at these disturbing facts)! Stick to 3 ounces of steak (about the size of a deck of cards), 1/2 cup or one scoop of ice cream, and 2 tbsp of salad dressing (measure it out!). It will amaze you at what an actual serving size is…and so will the drop in your dress size!
