USE A SMALLER PLATE

justincooper405
justincooper405 Posts: 107 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
In our home we use smaller plates and smaller cutlery for our main meals. The smaller plate helps with portion control and gives your meal a large appearance. The smaller cutlery helps with slower eating.

I also like to drink a glass of water before we start with our meal to help with not leaving the table hungry.
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Replies

  • Pam_1965
    Pam_1965 Posts: 137 Member
    I have started using smaller plates, too. Cute, square ones that I bought just for size. I live alone and eat frozen meals, mainly for dinner, but still like to have a nice looking meal. I dump it out on an empty plate and fill the empty space with veggies. I often will use a smaller fork.
  • Linzon
    Linzon Posts: 294 Member
    I use my kids' little plastic bowls for things like ice cream, definitely makes me feel like I'm getting a bigger portion! Meals though, gotta eat those on a big plate or I couldn't fit all my veg on :)
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    justincooper405 wrote: »
    In our home we use smaller plates and smaller cutlery for our main meals. The smaller plate helps with portion control and gives your meal a large appearance. The smaller cutlery helps with slower eating.

    I also like to drink a glass of water before we start with our meal to help with not leaving the table hungry.


    I do use smaller plates or bowls sometimes so my small portion of something doesn't look sad and always drink water with my meals. It can also be helpful to just fill out a larger plate with more vegetables. It is good for you, fills you up, looks like a lot of food but not many calories.
    I use regular sized forks and spoons. I don't see the point in using smaller cutlery.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Yup, studies show people eat different amounts depending on plate size:

    http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/discoveries/large-plate-mistake

    ...Larger plates can make a serving of food appear smaller, and smaller plates can lead us to misjudge that very same quantity of food as being significantly larger. For example, in a study conducted at a health and fitness camp, campers who were given larger bowls served and consumed 16% more cereal than those given smaller bowls. Despite the fact that those campers were eating more, their estimates of their cereal consumption were 7% lower than the estimates of the group eating from the smaller bowls. This suggests that not only could large dinnerware cause us to serve and eat more; it can do so without us noticing and trick us into believing we have eaten less.

    ...Healthy foods such as fresh vegetables should be served in larger plates to encourage consumption, while less healthy foods should be served from smaller plates to trick our sweet tooth into feeling satisfied with less.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Lounmoun wrote: »
    justincooper405 wrote: »
    In our home we use smaller plates and smaller cutlery for our main meals. The smaller plate helps with portion control and gives your meal a large appearance. The smaller cutlery helps with slower eating.

    I also like to drink a glass of water before we start with our meal to help with not leaving the table hungry.

    I do use smaller plates or bowls sometimes so my small portion of something doesn't look sad and always drink water with my meals. It can also be helpful to just fill out a larger plate with more vegetables. It is good for you, fills you up, looks like a lot of food but not many calories.
    I use regular sized forks and spoons. I don't see the point in using smaller cutlery.

    I like using my smallest spoon for ice cream and other desserts. Slows me down. Sometimes I even use the stick/spoon the gelato place gives me.
  • girlinahat
    girlinahat Posts: 2,956 Member
    I see the point in smaller plates, and using a teaspoon with desserts (if only to make the lusciousness last longer), but smaller forks would just annoy me - I hate going to a restaurant and being given cheap small cutlery so it would annoy me to eat that way too, besides which, a small fork can hold as much as a big fork.

    I use chopsticks sometimes which slows things down.
  • CooCooPuff
    CooCooPuff Posts: 4,374 Member
    I can see this being useful if you don't want to count calories.

    Personally, I just keep all of my foods in Tupperware.
  • CooCooPuff
    CooCooPuff Posts: 4,374 Member
    I can see this being useful if you don't want to count calories.

    Personally, I just keep all of my foods in Tupperware.
  • lml852014
    lml852014 Posts: 243 Member
    I actually use a small bowl when I eat ice cream or cereal so it looks like I'm eating way more then I am.
  • newheavensearth
    newheavensearth Posts: 870 Member
    Hubby and I eat lunch and dinner out of cereal bowls- veggies on the bottom, with a small amount of starchy carbs and protein on top of that. We eat cereal out of small mugs and ice cream out of little ramekins. I weigh my food into the bowls, hitting tare between foods. Hubby isn't having that. So far it's working. :)
  • goldengirl111
    goldengirl111 Posts: 684 Member
    ? Tare

    Great idea with the bowls.
  • goldengirl111
    goldengirl111 Posts: 684 Member
    lml852014 wrote: »
    I actually use a small bowl when I eat ice cream or cereal so it looks like I'm eating way more then I am.

    I use tea cup. but my problem is seconds
  • tarynbearyn
    tarynbearyn Posts: 25 Member
    When I get ice cream out, I always eat with the little sample spoons they have. Sometimes, dont even finish the scoop because my sweet tooth is satisfied half way in!
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    goldengirl111 wrote: »
    ? Tare

    Great idea with the bowls.

    The tare function on a scale resets the scale to zero so you're only weighing the food added. Set a bowl on the scale and hit tare, now you're only weighing the food added and not the weight of the bowl. Add an ingredient and note the weight and hit tare again. The scale resets to zero and now you're only weighing the next ingredient added. And so on. It makes it a lot easier to weigh the ingredients in a recipe or dish out several parts of a meal without having to dirty a bunch of different cups and bowls.
  • MommyMeggo
    MommyMeggo Posts: 1,222 Member
    goldengirl111 wrote: »
    ? Tare

    Great idea with the bowls.

    Tare = Zero it out.
    Put plate on scale - tare- empty plate is at zero weight-- so you are weighing only the food when you add it.
  • newheavensearth
    newheavensearth Posts: 870 Member
    goldengirl111 wrote: »
    ? Tare

    Great idea with the bowls.

    Thanks!

    Tare is the button that zeros out the scale while you still have a weight on it. So for example:
    Add broccoli, record weight- push tare to reset to zero
    Add chicken, record weight- push tare to reset to zero, etc.
  • CasperNaegle
    CasperNaegle Posts: 936 Member
    Just measure and weigh your food!
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    I use two small square plates for breakfast and lunch, and used to fill a small round plate twice for dinner. Now that I'm shooting everything I eat, I place dinner on a large/normal sized plate.

    I learnt portion control through the food diary here on MFP. Can't tell you how much I love the freedom from dogma :D
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    The plates that restaurants use now are much larger than the plates restaurants used 40 years ago. Just about any restaurant entree can be shared among 2 people or more people and everybody gets a full meal.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    I like to use small mugs for icecream. Other than that, normal sized cutlery and plates for me, since I load up on veggies.... volume eater here! I weigh my food.

    However, my wine glasses have doubled o_O
  • DearestWinter
    DearestWinter Posts: 595 Member
    I weigh my food so using a smaller plate isn't necessary for portion control but it does make my meal look less pathetic if I'm eating something that's calorie dense.

    I use small spoons for ice cream because I'm dainty.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    I need bigger plates to fit all the veggies too. Heck I often use a whole mixing bowl for my salads, lol.
  • tulips_and_tea
    tulips_and_tea Posts: 5,741 Member
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    The plates that restaurants use now are much larger than the plates restaurants used 40 years ago. Just about any restaurant entree can be shared among 2 people or more people and everybody gets a full meal.

    I've noticed this, too. The plates restaurants use are the size of the platters I use when serving a large family meal.

    I've always used smaller plates and bowls simply because I'm not a volume eater and they take up less room in the dishwasher.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    The plates that restaurants use now are much larger than the plates restaurants used 40 years ago. Just about any restaurant entree can be shared among 2 people or more people and everybody gets a full meal.

    Yeah I must not be eating at the same restaurants that everyone else goes to.
  • ashleyjongepier
    ashleyjongepier Posts: 130 Member
    Never works for me, just makes me think I had less and can have more haha. I get the reasoning behind it, its just never worked. I think I read once that eating off of blue plates can make you feel full faster.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited May 2016
    Really depends on the restaurant. Most of those I go to have plates the size of my ordinary ones, which are not huge.

    As for thinking you can have more, I simply never get seconds. I put on my plate what I'm planning to eat (which is why I think the plate thing makes less difference -- I believe it does when people aren't careful in measuring out foods to start with).

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