We all have a favorite plate or thaali or khumcha. Big. Small. A robust steel or a pretty melamine. Even those who dont have a favorite, are habituated to eating out of a particular one. When it comes to controlling how much you eat, your plate can be a friend or a foe. Here`s how.
The Illusion
While serving ourselves food or while being served, we try to judge if the food on our plate is enough or not, visually. These visual calculations of sufficiency of plated food, or using our eyes to judge the amount of food on our plate, are always inaccurate. Our eyes can fool us. To elaborate, people tend to gauge the adequacy of the food on their plate, by how it looks in proportion to the rest of the plate. That is, if the plate size is big, they will go on serving themselves until the food amount on the plate looks adequate or proportionate, in comparison to the rest of the plate. In other words, bigger plate sizes make people over serve food and thus over eat. Which means more calories being consumed.
An Illustration
Imagine you were offered 100 g rice on two plates-one, a smaller, 10 inch diameter (width) plate and another a 12 inch diameter one. The same 100 g of rice will look more, visually, on the smaller 10 inch plate, making you feel like you have enough to eat. On the bigger 12 inch plate, the very same 100 g of rice will look less, making you feel like you need more and goading you into adding more rice, until you get a `visual-proportion match’ between your plate and the rice. Thus, your plate is powerful.
A Bit Of Mathematics
A mere increase of 2 inches in diameter between the 10 inch plate and the 12 inch plate translates into a increased area of 44% (do the math) i.e the 12 inch plate has 44% more surface area than the 10 inch one. You will thus eat 44% percent more esp if you have a tendency to completely fill your plate, with no spaces and eat it clean.
Make Your Plate, A Weight Loss Ally
So, how do you outwit your plate? Change over to a smaller one. A steel or melamine or vitrelle, round plate, 9” or 10” in diameter should be good. In the Indian market, steel plates or thaalis go upto a whopping 15” inch in diameter. Thats a lot of surface area! If you are fond of partitioned plates (plates which mimic a thaali and have partitions for putting rice, gravy and other foods), migrate to those with a smaller diameter and smaller partitions. Remember on migrating to a smaller plate, if you were to miss your fav’ big ol’ plate, dont try to make up for its absence by loading your new plate from rim to rim or by piling food high so that everything fits! If you dont want to change your plate size and yet want to exert portion control or you hate round plates, then its best you serve your food e.g. rice, dal/beans, gravy, vegetables into small bowls (or, katoris) instead of directly on your plate and then stick to the amounts you have in those bowls, by not going for a refill. This will also work if you are a man who thinks its sissy to give up your massive plate for a smaller one (but isnt compromising on ones health sissy?). So when you grab your plate today, look at it in a new light.
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