Goldilocks walks into the three bears’ house. She see three bowls of porridge: small, medium, and large. What would happen to Goldi’s weight loss if she said to herself, “Eh, these are all probably about 4 Points Plus value”?

Portion Primer:

1. Keep measuring tools handy and in plain sight.

2. Measure liquid in a measuring cup and solids on a food scale or with dry measuring cups.

3. Measure accurately – be sure to level off.

4. Get familiar with what correct servings look like on your plates.

5. Store individual serving sizes of foods in baggies or plastic storage containers for quick grabbing, easy cooking, or freezing.

6. Check the actual serving size on the packages of foods and recipes.

Tips for dining out:

1. Divide your meal in half as soon as the plate arrives and have the other half boxed up immediately.

2. Consider ordering from the appetizer, lunch, or kid’s menu, where portions are smaller.

3. Use your hand to help measure the food on your plate.

Some challenges pertaining to portion control:

• Lacking proper measuring tools at home and when dining out.

• Not wanting to take the extra time to measure foods.

• Not knowing how much constitutes a portion size on Point Plus

• Not knowing where to find proper portion sizes.

Some strategies for measuring:• Keeping a variety of measuring tools handy at home.

Serving spoon set, measuring cups, scale

• Having alternate measuring strategies for dining out.Sharing with a friend, box half, eat until full and then box it

See slide #4

• Knowing where to find portion size information.Pocket Guide pages 85-87

Observe what an accurate portion looks like on your plate

• Taking steps to speed up the process of measuring portions.

Measuring more often increases your speed.

Questions you need to answer:

1. What tools do you use to portion your foods?If your answer is that you do not use any tools then you need to make a behavioral change

2. What tools speed up the process?How frequently do you use these tools? More frequent use

shortens the time necessary to acquire accurate portions!

3. Do you find that you are eating different portions of certain foods because of the new Points Plus values?

Are you also searching for new foods so that you don’t get in a rut?

When we introduced Points Plus, we told you that weight loss was as simple as “eat right, be active, repeat.” If you’re getting a little bored with the activities you’ve been doing, be here next week when we reenergize our activity efforts.

When you sit down to dinner tonight, remember Goldilocks and ask yourself: What’s the real portion size and Points Plus value of my meal?

See you next week!