Keeping your weight in check might sound hard to do at first but if you’ve been reading all the diet tips offered by nutritionists and health experts online, for sure you’ve come across the term portion eating. As the name suggests, portion eating means reducing your meals into portions to keep you from eating more than is necessary. Although the terms portion and serving can be interchangeable, serving size refers to the amount of food that is listed on the nutritional guideline. Portion, on the other hand, is the amount of food that you’re going to eat.
So why is that portion eating is believed to be effective in helping you lose weight? It appears that this eating practice of yours actually has plenty of benefits.
- Weight loss. Portion eating can help regulate your insulin and glucose levels which mean that you’re not suffering from hypoglycemia. When you eat smaller portions frequently, you are actually stopping your cravings from happening all the time plus you get to reduce your overall calorie consumption. This, in turn, promotes weight loss since you are eating less.
- Save more money. Another benefit to portion eating is that you get to save lots of money in the process. Just think about it. Since you’re reducing your portions and that you’re focusing on the quality of the food that you’re eating and the nutrients that they contain, you won’t be spending too much money of buying processed foods. What’s more, since you’re practicing portion eating, you’re less likely to dine out which is also another reason why you get to put money aside for a rainy day.
- Regulate glucose and insulin levels. The foods that you consume, particularly carbohydrates, are usually transformed into glucose which is your body’s main source of energy. Eating large amounts of food can cause your glucose levels to rise rapidly which can prompt your pancreas to release insulin. However, if your glucose levels are rising too fast, your pancreas will have a hard time coping up with it hence you experience hypoglycemia. This causes you to think that you need more food to keep your glucose levels steady but only make you eat more than usual. Eating small portions of food is considerably better as it helps keep both your glucose and insulin levels steady.
- Better digestion. Another plus to portion eating is that you are actually helping your digestion work more efficiently. Keep in mind that your digestive system will be working double time just to be able to digest the food that you’ve eaten causing cramps to appear. By keeping your portions small, you’re making it easier for your digestive system to digest all the food that you’ve eaten and deliver the nutrients to the appropriate places in your body.
As you can see, there are many advantages that you can get from practicing portion eating. Although this may be difficult at first especially when you’re used to eating big portions, once you’ve cut down your eating size, you’ll notice the huge impact it has on your overall health and weight too.
