The above short video neatly demonstrates how the same amount of food on a large plate looks more stingy than when it fills a smaller plate. My daughter is off to university and has just bought a few plates to take with her. She suggested writing this blog as her new plates are big and she decided to eat her breakfast off one of them. She was shocked to see how tiny her normal amount of breakfast looked on one of her new plates. And she has a good point. There are frequent programmes on the telly talking about how people don’t realise how much they are eating – and if we have lovely large flat plates, a sensible portion just looks microscopic. Yes, as first we can keep our portion size to what we normally eat – but over time the amount we eat has to increase. And vice-versa: if our plates are generous, and so is our pant size, then eating off a smaller plate can only help reduce the amount we eat fairly painlessly. And the same goes for bowls, glasses and cups. There are jokes about, ‘I only drink one glass of wine in the evening.’ Indeed.
To successfully lose weight involves more than just eating less; what we eat has as much bearing on the size and tightness of our clothes, or our energy levels, as how much we eat. Even so, for many, an overall reduction in the sheer quantity of food unwittingly stuffed down the cakehole is a good starting point.