My Diet Plate: “The Enforcer”
Here’s my secret for merging portion control and the principles of Volumetrics at lunchtime: Use a divided plate. I found these nice plastic lunch plates at my local grocery store and thought “Eureka!” Maybe that’s a bit much– but I did realize that if I filled one small segment with one vegetable, another segment with another veggie and put a sandwich in the middle, I’d ensure I ate tons of low energy density foods at lunch. Plus, by having two segments for veggies, I would eat a variety of veggies, which is advantageous from a nutrition point of view. The large segment takes up only half the plate. I can fill it with the sandwich, spaghetti, chile, broiled chicken or whaterever else I want, and it’s automatically portion controlled. By the way, did you notice I added lettuce to the sandwich? I fixed it using about 3 ounces of low fat skinless chicken (left over from the day Jim prepared “Beer Can Chicken”. ) I did add a little bit of mayonnaise– about 1 teaspoon. The lettuce bulks it up and lowers the energy density compared to leaving the lettuce off. I just finished lunch, and it was yummy! (And let me tell you, after eating at least 1 1/2 cups of veggies with my sandwich, I’m full!)