Proper Portions

Ryan and I are not obese people. But from time to time, we have our chunky feeling moments.

I half blame myself for this.

I have been referred to as a "jewish mother" by one of our friends because of the way I can almost "force" food onto people. A few years back when I was living in my apartment, Ryan and our friend John used to come over for dinner all the time. This was before my roommate at the time moved in and so we would have little "dinner parties" and hang out and it was adorable.

I remember specifically making dinner and having more food than we knew what to do with (I'm not so good with cutting recipes). Instead of having left overs (this girl doesn't do left overs) I would insist that they eat more. Both of them would end up uncomfortably full while I was pleased that all my hard work paid off :)

Well, as we're getting older, my husband really knows how to make me proud of a meal by going back for seconds (I have joked with him before that if he doesn't get seconds, I know not to make a certain meal again). However, when he worries from time to time about his weight, I am left trying to figure out ways to "nicely" help him out.

Solution: portion control. For awhile now, we have been doing this and I personally feel it works so well.

We have a large collection of plates in a variety of sizes. Our largest dinner plates honest to goodness are so big they didn't fit in our cabinets at our old house. Then, we have the "smaller" salad plates that we instead would use as dinner plates. Then finally we have a big collection of dessert plates. Similarly we have a variety of bowl sizes as well.

Well, typically I'd fill the middle (normal) sized plates up and serve them. Ryan would then go back for seconds. Now, I typically use the dessert plates (specifically for filling/heavy meals like pasta). So, he gets a smaller portion to begin with and still has the illusion of a "full plate" of food. I'm sure if I brought out a large plate with the same amount of food he'd look at me like I was crazy. So, even if he goes back for seconds, he's still probably only getting the amount of food that would have been on of the larger plates. It's not like this is a secret to him, he's aware of it, it just really works.

Recently reading through my Parents magazine, I came across an article that used similar ways to encourage their kids to eat healthy.

Ideas they suggested were when serving juice, use a tall slender glass. If it's a short/fat glass, kids will assume they are getting less and want more. A tall slender glass will give them the illusion that they're getting more and they'll feel satisfied. (another suggestion is adding water to juice. personally I think juices like ocean spray and juicy juice are very strong and taste better diluted).

Also, try serving an appetizer of veggies before dinner, before the carbs come out. If they're hungry enough they'll pick at them a little before they get to the other items as opposed to offering both at the same time and having them chose the non-veggies first. Even just one or two pieces are better than none at all.

In addition, never force your child to eat what's on their plate. Over eating is a big problem with children (and even adults). Instead, play around with how foods are offered to encourage them to eat one over the other.

Similar to the juice story above, offer water in large glasses. Chances are, no matter what the size of the glass, they will drink about half. So, if you give them a 4 oz glass of water, you're lucky if they drink 2oz. But offering a 10oz glass of water, they might put down 5oz.

I'm sure there are a million other ways to encourage proper portions and healthy eating. I'd love to hear ways that you all encourage healthy eating in your home.