Dieting to lose weight? Don’t bother, just change your plate

It sounds odd, but it makes sense: if you use a smaller plate than you normally would, you’ll lose weight.

“Trying to lose weight? Try a smaller plate” reports:

In the first clinical trial on “portion control plates,” Sue Pedersen, an endocrinologist at the University of Calgary, had 65 subjects use a specially designed plate and bowl to limit their calorie intake for part of each day. Another 65 people who didn’t use the dishes served as a control group.

The results, published in June in the Archives of Internal Medicine, are encouraging: After six months, subjects using the plates lost an average of 1.8 percent of their weight, compared with 0.1 percent loss in the control group.

You can buy specially designed “dieting” plates, but there’s no need to. Just use smaller plates – an entree plate rather than a dinner plate. This makes it easier to serve yourself smaller portions. The smaller plate will enforce the idea that portion size matters, and will help you to remember portion control at meal times.

It’s definitely worth a try.

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