Welcome to Week 1 of the 4 week Health Improvement Challenge! Today we will be talking about:
In order to enjoy good health, the quality and nutritional balance of our diet are obviously very important. Equally important is the amount of food we eat. If we eat more than our body needs to maintain vital functions and meet energy demands (energy in / energy out) we gain weight, simple as that.
The food industry uses every marketing ploy in the book to trick us into buying more than we need to eat, and they are masters of the art. Overeating damages our health, not to mention what it costs in terms of our own money wasted, escalating costs to medical and social services and massive costs to the industry through a sick workforce and lost productivity.
We are continually persuaded to eat big: all-you-can-eat buffets; family-size chocolate bars; ‘tall’ (which is what you get if you ask for ‘small’ 350ml), ‘grande’ and ‘venti’ (600ml!) coffees; pizzas as big as a table. Oversized and overblown is the new ‘normal’. Our eyes have been re-educated to expect BIG on the plate when we eat out and BIG when we eat in. Overeating makes us overweight. Portion control is one of the easiest ways to stop overeating and lose weight and this is something we cannot recommend highly enough.
Try these tips for managing your portion size: