Watch Those Portions!

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A new study confirms that people have difficulty judging how much food they eat. This can pose a problem since excessive amounts of food are frequently available to us. Ideally, our internal hunger signals would guide us to eat just the right amount of food for our needs. Unfortunately, studies show that external influences distract many of us from following our body signals.

The increase in restaurant portions is equally troublesome, since many Americans eat out frequently. The excess portions can affect our health. An order of pasta, for example, is often three cups. For those with calorie needs at the lower end of the spectrum, like inactive women and older adults, that’s all six of the daily grain servings, recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid, in one meal.

Thankfully, people can improve their ability to estimate portions. In one study, people first misjudged the amounts of different food portions by 33 to almost 200 percent. After some brief training looking at labeled portions and learning a few shortcuts, their ability improved markedly. Then with some practice measuring foods, the people were able to correctly guess the size of portions without error or with no more than 24 percent error - a huge improvement from the beginning of the study.

Taken From

http://diabeticgourmet.com/articles/403.shtml

My Assignment for the next 2 weeks, Measure Cereal, Peanut Butter, and other foods that I eat frequently that I know I am overeating.

Funny thing: Watching Good Morning America, and Bob is on from Biggest Loser, saying to measure your food and train yourself on poriton size before eyeballing it. LOL. A sign for me, perhaps?