In my mind, as a practicing registered dietitian nutritionist, eating off of smaller plates is one of the easier and most effective methods to reach health/nutrition goals. Being mindful helps us feel true hunger and satiety without being swayed by outside forces, at least not as often. You don’t have to totally change what you eat, but this is a way to cut down on portions while feeling satisfied with eating less. Again, like I said before, this is BIG!

Almost every time a patient comes in to see me, we discuss this concept and way of eating. It’s because I understand it’s effectiveness, I have seen it work, and I really believe in the power of smaller plates.

First, when you’re eating something (slowly-eat slowly!!!!), keep an internal dialogue going. Ask yourself why you are still eating something:

Is it because:

you’re still hungry? If yes, proceed…
the food tastes so good, you can’t stop? If yes, again drop the fork. Take a water break.
everyone around you is still eating? If yes, drop the fork, drink some water
there’s still food on your plate? If yes, you get the picture
What do you realize about these reasons to keep on keeping on? Which reasons are internal? Which are external? Actually answer the questions!

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Continued hunger and tasty food, I’d say those are internal cues. The fact that everyone around you is still eating and having food on your plate, well those are external cues. What gets you to continue to eat? Internal or external cues?

Dr. Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab has lead numerous studies on eating behavior. He wrote the best-selling book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, along with many others. What he’s found is interesting and has influenced the way I counsel with patients about weight loss and weight management.

Here’s what he found & what I have put into practice:

1. Eat off of a 9- 10 1/4 inch plate.

He found that people served up more food onto a larger plate than a smaller one. BUT, when asked which plate appeared to have more food on it, people said the smaller plate had more on it! Boom! In reality, the larger plate had 25-ish% more on it. But it didn’t look like more! So, eat off a smaller plate.

2. Drink caloric beverages from a tall, skinny glass.

Experienced bartenders were asked (multiple times) to pour a 1 oz shot into a wide squat glass, and also into a tall skinny glass. Now, please understand that these bartenders had loads of experience pouring drinks, and correctly portioning drinks was imperative for budgeting, because they could be losing $$$ by overpouring. What did they do? They overpoured in the short wide glasses, and underpoured in the tall glasses. But thought that they poured the same amount! So, another way to trick yourself into being satisfied with less, is to drink from tall, skinny glasses.

These visual illusions are powerful aren’t they!

3. Use internal cues to stop eating

Ok, this isn’t as easy as tricking your mind with strategically sized plates & cups, but still important. He asked hundreds of Parisians and Chicago-ans how they know they’re done eating. Knowing that there is a higher obesity rate in Chicago than in Paris, how do you think the majority of people from each place responded? The Parisians overwhelmingly stated that they know they’re done because they are no longer hungry, or that the food no longer tasted good. What did those from Chicago say? Once their plate was empty, or their TV show was over. Whoa. Now, we’ve all done it, but maybe it’s time to realize that our stomachs are better at recognizing fullness than our eyes. Scroll back up to the top and review the question to ask yourself throughout the course of your meal ^ & focus on internal rather than external cues.

4. Portion out your meals & SNACKS!

I “all-capped” the snacks, because it seems way easier to portion out meals, but many snacks are eaten out of multi- serving bags. Am I right? Dr Wansink fed subjects from bottomless and bottom-ed bowls. The bottom-less bowl had soup continuing to fill it up through a tube from under the table (this group didn’t know they had a bottomless bowl), they reported not feeling overly full, even though they ate 76% more than the bottom-ed bowl group. This is crazy right? Going back to the importance of using internal not external (ie: an empty bowl) cues to stop eating, it’s important to avoid overeating.

5. Change your food environment.

Along the external cues line, we are often swayed to eat or continue to eat just by seeing something. How many times have you been full or overly stuffed while at a gathering and continued to eat the food that was still in front of you? I’ve certainly done it, and have done it recently. Really goes to show that we eat with our eyes. Dr Wansink offers a few tips on how to change our environment to better listen to our internal hunger/satiety cues.

Keep food on the counter, not the dinner table. (except for vegetables) If you have to get up and walk across the kitchen to refill your plate, are you as likely to refill your plate? I’d say no, he would too. This gives you a chance to let your fullness signals to reach your brain, and avoid eating past full.
Adjust eye-level foods in the pantry & fridge. You’re 10x more likely to grab what you see 1st vs what you see 5th, so keep healthy foods at the forefront of your pantry & fridge.