The secret to losing weight

Each year Canadians spend billions of dollars on diet pills, herbs, supplements and programs that promise miraculous weight loss. Almost all these products and regimens are based on one premise: if we want to trim our waistlines we need to stop eating certain foods or, perhaps, eliminate particular food groups from our diet altogether. 

The weight loss industry is extremely preoccupied with the types of food we put in our mouths. But it’s not carbohydrates, fats, or sugar that makes us gain weight. It’s not that we’re eating the wrong combinations of food or that we’re having meals and snacks that are detrimental to our blood type. The problem is we’re eating too much. The culprit is our portion sizes.

Over the past 30 years, portions have subtly and steadily increased. Muffins are now the size of miniature doll houses. Bagels resemble life-preservers. And our dinner plates look more like serving platters. 

All this is not helpful given that many of us abide by the law of portion size: the more food we have in front of us, the more we eat. 

Dr. Barbara Rolls and her colleagues at Penn State University have repeatedly seen this law in action. Rolls and her team observed that research volunteers  habitually ate more when served larger amounts of food. Hungry or not, their study participants consumed greater quantities of sandwiches, snack foods, or restaurant meals, compared to when they were given smaller portions.

Similar behaviour has been studied in children and it appears the law of portion size kicks in somewhere between the ages of three and five. Researchers, Dr. Leann Birch (also of Penn State University) and Dr. Jennifer Fisher of Baylor College of Medicine reported that 3 year-olds, when given a lot of food, will eat only until they feel full. They’re not influenced by serving size. But by the age of 5, something changes – a child will pretty much eat whatever portion they’re given.

Clearly, large portions encourage us to eat past the point of feeling full. We like to keep munching away.

So how do we overcome our human nature and win this battle? Our first line of defense needs to be eating smaller portions. We have to start putting less food on our plates, especially for those of us who aren’t great at listening to our fullness cues.

A friend recently told me an interesting story about plates and portions: A young couple was getting ready to move out of province and in an attempt to do some early preparation, they packed most of their dishes six months in advance. For meals prior to leaving town, they set aside luncheon plates. 

photo by Paul Johnson via istockphotos.com

The couple ate the same food as usual but meals were served on these smaller-sized dishes.

Lo and behold, their clothes began to fit differently and over a six month period both of them lost a significant amount of weight. Neither of them realized they were consuming less food until their bodies began to shrink.

It’s ironic that so much money is blown on the dieting industry, yet many of us rarely consider reducing portions as a weight management option: a strategy that’s practical, effective, and economical. 

Most diet products and programs don’t fit our everyday lives. They fail to work because their approach to food isn’t in sync with the way we really eat. Cutting out our favorite foods is a lousy idea but cutting down on how much we eat of them is more realistic. 


originally published in the Vancouver Courier, September 9, 2009