FOOD YOUR BODY RIGHT: SHE CUT HER PLATE IN HALF AND LOST 25 POUNDS

Apr
23
2009

Posted by: admin in Categories: Weight Loss.
Using Tags: Weight Loss

When it comes to cleaning her plate, Barbara Vaughan knows where to draw the line, quite literally. She has been doing it for 30 years.

Like most of us, Barbara learned at an early age not to waste food. “In my family, it was a sin to not finish everything on your plate,” recalls the 51-year-old Boston businesswoman. “I’d sit at the table for hours because my parents wouldn’t allow me to leave until I’d eaten my peas. When you’re raised like that, you get conditioned to clean your plate. It’s a habit that’s really hard to break.”

Barbara’s clean-plate habit stayed with her when she went to college, where the cafeteria served jumbo-size portions of practi-

cally everything, from mashed potatoes with gravy to burgers to ice cream. True to form, she ate every last bite. Her weight climbed to 140, then to 145, during her freshman year alone.

As the pounds piled on, Barbara grew more and more dissatisfied with her appearance. She knew that she was eating a lot more than she should and that the extra calories were contributing to her weight gain. So she set out to break herself of her clean-plate habit once and for all. And she used a knife to do it.

Whenever Barbara sat down to a meal in the campus cafeteria, she’d take her knife and draw a line right down the middle of her plate, bisecting the meat, the mashed potatoes, or whatever else she was served. Then she ate only the food to one side of the line, leaving the rest behind. This simple trick cut Barbara’s portions in half. It also enabled her to change her clean-plate mindset. “That line showed me when I had eaten enough,” she explains. “I could let the rest of my food lie without guilt.”

Her strategy worked. By the time Barbara graduated from college, she had taken off 25 pounds. She has maintained her weight at a healthy 120 pounds ever since.

WINNING ACTION

Draw the line on eating.

One way to teach yourself portion control is to use Barbara’s technique. Use your knife to draw a line right down the middle of your plate. Eat only the food to one side of the line, and leave the rest. You can save it for another meal!