Control your Portions, Control your Weight

Trying to lose weight takes discpline in both diet and exercise. Often times you may find your weight to have reached a plateau in losing weight even with regularl exercise. The cause for the stagnant weight loss may be overeating. By increasing your workout time, and decreasing calorie intake your body will begin to drop the desired weight.

Fitness Magazine gives these calorie comparisons for portion control:

Exercise	Calories* burned in 30 min.	Calories* burned in 45 min.
Yoga	80 = 1 apple	120 = ¼ c. of low-fat granola
Walking (4mph)	160 = 1 c. low-fat yogurt	240 = 1 serving pita chips + 1½ tbsp hummus
Spinning	224 = 1 c. cereal + ½ c. of skim milk	336 = 2 slices whole wheat toast + 1 tbsp peanut butter
Lap Swimming	256 = 1 energy bar	384 = 1 smoothie & 3 tbsp trail mix
Running (6 mph)	320 = 1c. low-fat chocolate milk & 1oz. almonds	480 = 1 banana & 2 oz. low-fat cheese + 5 crackers

* Based on 140 lb woman

Portion control is an important way to maintain a healthy diet while wanting to lose weight. Be sure to keep a balance in your diet, eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and protein. Eliminating one food source is not necessary in order to lose weight but by eliminating high sugar and high fatty foods the body change will be more apparent, more quickly. By simply controlling portions you enable eating a variety of foods and while still seeing results.

Even if you do not feel like you are over eating often times you may be. Seventy-six percent of Chef’s in a survey done by the Obesity Journal claimed to serve “regular portions,” but actual portions (steak and pasta) were two to four times larger than the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggests.

For more on how to judge appropriate portions check out RevolutionHealth.com's article.