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Step 1
Educate yourself on healthy portion sizes. Plan on spending some time researching what the proper portion size is for everything you eat. According to Prevention.com, a good rule of thumb is that a healthy portion of fruits, vegetables or grains should be roughly the size of your closed fist, while a healthy portion of meat is about equal to the size of the palm of your hand. After you get in the habit of checking for proper portion size for everything you eat for a while, you'll get a better feel of what a healthy portion size is and will be less likely to overeat due to ignorance.
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Step 2
Use visual cues. Visualize the correct portion sizes on your plate. Your meat or protein should take up one quarter, grains or rice another, and fruits or vegetables should fill up the other half. Some people have even found it useful to buy special plates with these markings on them as an in-your-face reminder to control their portions.
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Step 3
Snack smartly. Individually wrapped snacks, like granola bars or yogurt cups, are a smart way of sticking to a healthy portion size when you are snacking. However, when it comes to snacks like popcorn, nuts, or potato chips, things can get a bit more tricky. A good way to stick to healthy portion sizes when you are snacking on items like these is to take the time to separate out the portion sizes yourself using plastic baggies or small containers.
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Step 4
Serve one portion at a time. It may be more convenient to bring the entire bowl of pasta to the dinner table, but doing so will make you much more likely to take seconds and overeat. Instead, separate a healthy portion size of the food onto a plate or other container and leave the rest of the food out of reach.
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Step 5
Consider the value of what you are eating. Remember you typically can get away with eating much more of healthy, low-calorie foods than you can with foods that have little nutritional value or are low in calories. Decide whether it is really worth it to sacrifice an entire plate of salad for that one half of a candy bar that has the same amount of calories.
