why you should abolish your tiny plate. NO TINY PLATES

 I have recently come across this advice from USDA:

Decrease Portion Sizes

The Dietary Guidelines encourage you to enjoy your food, but eat less and to avoid oversized portions.

Common sense, I agree. But if you keep reading on:

• Figure out how big your portions really are:
  • Measure how much the bowls, glasses, cups, and plates you usually use hold. Pour your breakfast cereal into your regular bowl.  Then, pour it into a measuring cup.  How many cups of cereal do you eat each day?  
• Measure a fixed amount of some foods and drinks to see what they look like in your glasses and plates. For example, measure 1 cup of juice to see what 1 cup of liquid looks like in your favorite glass.
  • To see what 1 cup, ½ cup, or 1 ounce of some different foods looks like, visit the food gallery and find some of the foods you eat in each group.

• A simple trick to help you eat less is to use a smaller plate, bowl, or glass. One cup of food on a small plate looks like more than the same cup of food on a large plate.

My comment would be... who in the world has the time for that??

Am I really going to stand in the kitchen with bowls glasses cups and plates and pour cereal from one to the other? Where did I go wrong with my life?

I think that this only works when you're either extremely OCD or very bored (and by all means nothing is wrong with either <3)

My main problem with this advice is a very practical one- where am I supposed to put my food?

Seriously. My broccoli barely fits on one plate.

Here is what I do- I pick the biggest plate that I own and then I throw everything that I happen to have on it.  Why this works?

First off- picking a huge plate that is filled with mostly veggies and salad isn't a 10 minute one night stand- you might have to sit down for this encounter :)

It's quite a commitment when compared to a tiny plate with only carbs/fats. I can almost promise that it will take you some time wolfing all of this broccoli down your face (especially if you're complaining about it as well)- and by the time that you're done it's almost impossible to overeat.

oh you fancy huh

So go ahead and pick the big plate. Make it look fancy! A visual feast for the soul! And stop fretting over your diet and running around your kitchen measuring cereal with your bowls cups and whatever else that you own like a crazy person.