Lose Weight, Get Smaller Plate

This is the holiday season, but it's also the season for most of us to gain a pound or two. So, how do you keep those pounds off?

It's simple, easy and cheap, but something most of us don't do---portion control. And the big tip here is to change the size of your plates.

Measure the size of your dinner plates. Chances are they are 10 to 12 inches across. In a restaurant, they are most likely 12 to 14 inches wide. The interesting things is that if you happen to have and plates from your parents or grandparents, from back in the 60s or so, they'll probably only measure around 8 inches. The point is that plate size has increased over the years and that means portion size has gone up as well. That increase in portion size is what's helping pack on the pounds. So, by simply changing out to smaller 8 to 9 inch plates, you'll lose weight.

Here's why. We tend to stop eating based on what are called external factors---in other words, we eat until our plate is clean when we should only be eating until we start to feel full. And researchers have found that we'll do the same with smaller plates, but since the portion sizes are smaller we tend to eat less. It's a very cheap and very effective way to trick our brains into cutting back on how much we eat and a great way to start shedding pounds.