Let me be the first here to say that, yes, size matters.
A couple of weeks ago I was on a drive from Tulsa to Houston. The Trailblazer I was driving had XM Radio, and during Air America’s commercial breaks, there was a health tip (brought to you by Maxim…or Men’s Health or somebody) that stated the size of our dinner plates was a major contributing factor of Americans becoming overweight. Here’s the way it works: the diameter of a typical American dinner plate is 11 inches; the diameter of a typical European dinner plate is 9 inches. ?r2 shows that the 2-inch difference amounts to the 11-inch plate having 50% more surface area than the 9-inch plate. If, like most people, you fill your plate, you’re putting 50% more food on it than a person with the 9-inch plate.
This means we’re eating 50% more food, since we usually eat whatever is on our plates. Or, to look at it differently, we feel full when our plate is empty. By the way, some restaurants use 13-inch plates, which means it’s twice as big as the 9-inch plate.
When I got back from Houston, I went out and bought a couple of 9-inch plates. Now, because we can’t fit as much food on it as we would be able to with the regular plates, Cindy and I have started using portion control. Whatever the package says is one serving, we put one serving of it on the plate. Basically, we’re eating the same stuff, but scaling down the meal to fit on the new plates.
And we’re caring over portion control to breakfast and lunch, with a snack in-between meals. If we didn’t, I would feel that because I’m eating a smaller dinner, I can eat a bigger breakfast or lunch to make up the difference of what I’m not getting at dinner. So, the change has to be across-the-board or it just won’ t work. The weird thing is that I don’t feel hungry. In fact, sometimes, I feel so stuffed that I just know I must be putting on weight. It certainly doesn’t feel like I’ve lost any.
Going to the gym and taking Hooper for walks is great, but with my normal eating schedule and portions, I was making slow progress. From the beginning of January to the end of May, I had lost a total of 4 lbs.
Since we’ve been doing this — from the beginning of June to today — I have lost 6 more lbs., making it a total of 10.
I had to re-check the scale a few times, but it was right.
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Very cool! (Go Chris!) (& Cindy!)
Hey Chris. I’m going to try smaller plates too and see what happens. You asked where we got the tent, and it’s a Wal-Mart special. It was the only small tent they had the day before our trip, and it cost $30 I think. It did the trick–I liked it. By the way, I liked the cum gun entry and agree with your assessment.
Wow, that’s great! Congratulations on the (almost) effortless weight loss!
I had heard about the dinner-plate size thing awhile ago, but I guess I never did the math to realize that two inches is a 50% volume (area?) difference! Sheesh!
And this, right after having stuffed myself on Italian leftovers from Buca di Beppo. Bleh.
Hey! That’s awesome! Who knew that a little psychological trick like that would work. Maybe we should swap out our plates. A great excuse to buy new plates.
This entry also reminded me of weight watchers rhetoric that food should not be touching on the plate either. I’ll starve!
Something else you all should know about this: it’s useless for pancakes because you can just keep stacking them up.
so did you continue to lose? where did you get the smaller plates or are those just standard salad plates?