Portion Control

The figures are simple. Take in too much food for your daily needs, and much of the excess will be stored as fat.

If you are overweight, one of the simplest things you can do to help yourself shed some pounds, is introduce portion control into your life, by checking the quantities of food you eat, both at home and when you eat out.

Committing to this simple change long-term can help you both to lose weight and maintain the loss.

PORTION CONTROL: JUST WHAT IS A PORTION?

Government health departments and other health organisations use serving to describe the amount of any particular food which the quantity they recommend you should eat at any one meal.

If you look at a Food Pyramid, for example, you'll see servings used to describe healthy amounts of food.

So far so straightforward, but manufacturers muddy the waters by recommending serving sizes on their packaging - and these may well not be the same as national guidelines.

Manufacturers, after all, have a vested interest in getting you to eat more of their products, so they're hardly going to skimp on their suggested serving sizes. Take care when you check packages, because it's easy to be misled.

A portion is the quantity of food you serve yourself at a meal, and is entirely within your control. That's fine, if the portion size that suits you matches with recommended healthy serving sizes.

But more often than not we happily pile more food on to our plates, sometimes serving ourselves double or more than is good for us - and that's where problems begin.

PORTION CONTROL: WHAT ARE STANDARD SERVINGS?

For example, a 14-year-old boy, who is growing fast and - with a bit of luck - is pretty active, needs more food than a 60-year-old man in a sedentary job. The list below gives guidelines on standard servings, which you can adapt depending on your family's needs.

• Fruit and vegetables You need a minimum of five servings a day of fresh fruit and vegetables, seven portions are better and nine better still. Go for a mix of colours and be inventive - you can add fresh fruit and veg to every meal with a bit of planning. Add to breakfast creal, use as snacks, have a salad with every meal, have several veggie meals a week, add to soups and stews, add raw veg to salads. Visit our page on fruit and vegetable servings for the kind of amounts you should be eating.
• Carbohydrates, like bread, cereals, potatoes, sweet potatoes, noodles, pasta, rice Eat 5-7 servings of these foods a day. A serving is one large, medium-thick slice of bread (so a sandwich uses two servings), a baked potato the size of your clenched fist, 2 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup) cooked rice, 3 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup) pasta or noodles, 3 crackers, 4 crispbreads. Choose wholegrain breads, rice and pasta which are healthier than refined varieties and help you to feel satisfied for longer.
• Milk and dairy foods Keep a tight rein on these high-fat foods, choosing just 2-3 portions a day. Choose lower fat foods when you can, such as skimmed (skim) or semi-skimmed (2% milkfat) milks and low or zero fat yogurt or fromage frais. A serving of milk is 200ml (scant 1 cup), 40g (1.5 oz) hard cheese (a piece the size of a small matchbox), a small 150g pot plain low fat yogurt or fromage frais, and a small 200g tub cottage cheese.
• Protein foods: Meat, fish, eggs, pulses, tofu, beans, seeds, nuts 2-3 servings a day is enough. Serving sizes: 100g (4 oz) fish or lean meat or poultry without skin (a piece roughly the size of a pack of cards), 2 eggs, 4 tbsp pulses, lentils or beans, 2 tbsp nuts, 3 tbsp soya/tofu/Quorn.
• Foods containing fats and sugars No more than a single portion a day. Think of these foods as occasional treats, not part of your day-to-day diet. Serving sizes: 3 tsp sugar, 2 tsp cream, 1 heaped tsp jam or honey, 1 small pork pie (50g/2 oz) or sausage roll (95g/3.5oz), 1 small (28g) packet of crisps/potato chips, 2 plain biscuits, 1 chocolate biscuit, 1 small doughnut, 1 small slice cake, 1 treat-size chocolate bar (19g), 1 scoop ice cream.

PORTION CONTROL: ON THE PLATE

Once you can visualise a healthy plate, it'll be easier to serve the right amounts of different foods. Two thirds of a healthy plate should be covered with vegetables, fruit, wholegrains or beans, and only one-third or less should have animal protein, according to the American Institute of Cancer Research, who produced this image of the new American plate as a guideline.

If you find it hard to judge the correct serving sizes, try weighing or measuring all your food for a week so that you really know what a healthy portion looks like.

When you've weighed out healthy portions for a complete meal, see how it looks on your plate. If the plate doesn't look full, switch to smaller plates otherwise you'll always be tempted to fill a plate that's too large to the edges.

You can make food take up more space on the plate by chopping, cutting it up or grating (shredding) it. This tactic fools the eye and the stomach into thinking you've eaten more than you have.

Correct portion control is a habit, and after a while you'll wonder how you used to eat larger quantities. You really can downsize your dinner without ending up ravenous and deprived - and your belly, waist and thighs will definitely thank you!