Portion Size Matters!
If you are on a weight loss diet of some description and you are becoming concerned that you are not losing as much weight as you expected to lose, it could be that you have not quite found the right portion size for your meals. Many people who have gained weight over time have done so through eating meals that were too large for them. Of course its not something that you may notice especially when it happens over time as you gradually become accustomed to eating larger size meals.
But when you come to diet in order to lose weight, it is quite natural to expect to continue eating the same size portions, just substituting the high calorie foods for lower calorie alternatives. While the plan is basically sound, it can slow down the rate of weight loss simply because the stomach is still used to receiving a large portion of food at each meal sitting. The way to overcome this problem is to reduce the portion sizes so that the stomach becomes re-educated to expect less food at each meal time.
This is something that many what is diet meal delivery programs already cater for, as their meal sizes are often a lot smaller than what people are generally used to. It can cause problems in the early days of such diets because the dieter feels hungry all the time while their stomachs are getting used to the smaller portions.
There is a way around this problem and that is to eat smaller meals but more of them. Instead of the typical three main meals of the day, try increasing that to five smaller meals. You will find you don’t tend to feel hungry between meals as the time between them is shorter. You can work with much smaller portions of food remembering to maintain a healthy balance of proteins, low glycemic carbs and unsaturated fats always making sure to include some fiber in the form or raw fruit or vegetables.
Eating less food at each sitting teaches the stomach to expect less food, so it naturally learns this new regimen over time. Your calorie intake may be exactly the same as it was when you were eating three larger meals, but your body;s fat burning power increases as the digestive system has to work more often to process the food spread out over the day. This is desirable and leads to greater weight loss over time too, which is, after all, what you are aiming for.