Wish you could last longer between meals? Fake a bigger serving size the next time you eat. Regardless of your portion size, if you believe you’ve eaten a lot, you’ll feel less hungry later than if you thought your serving was on the smaller side, according to research in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers at the University of Bristol showed volunteers small or large portions of soup just before lunch, and then altered the amount of soup they actually ate using a hidden pump that could replenish or drain a soup bowl without the volunteer noticing. Two to three hours after lunch, volunteers who had seen a bigger portion of soup reported much less hunger than those who had been shown the smaller portion.
The authors of the study say that these results reveal how memory processes contribute to feelings of satiety after a meal. “The emotional satisfaction from feeling like you had a big meal may be more important than how much you eat,” says Lisa Drayer R.D., author of The Beauty Diet (not affiliated with the study).
So how can you reap the benefits of this portion control stunt without a hidden soup pump? It’s all about your plating, says Christine Avanti, certified nutritionist, and author of Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food. Try these seven tricks:
Pile on the volume
Make sure to pile on foods that have a lot volume, rather than denser, smaller foods, Avanti advises. For example: “A slice of salmon, asparagus, and a baked potato looks like more than a piece of pizza, but it’s far less caloric,” she says.
Fill up on greens first
When serving dinner, fill half your plate with greens before piling on the main courses, Avanti says. Most vegetables have a lot of volume and the more plate real estate they take up, the more robust and filling your meal appears. Plus, veggies are full of fiber, vitamins, and minerals—other ingredients that can signal your body you are getting enough to eat. Divide the other half of your plate by filling ¼ with protein like chicken or fish and the remaining ¼ with a high-fiber starch like sweet potatoes, she says.
Order the soup
“The concept of soup is that you can load it up with veggies and broth and although it weighs a lot, it isn’t high in calories,” Avanti says. And go ahead and ask for the big bowl—“One large bowl of soup is well under 400 calories,” she says. Perfect for making yourself believe that you’re eating a lot. Just be smart about your soup choice. Choose a broth-based soup with lots of veggies rather than a cream-based soup like clam chowder or broccoli cheese, which is loaded with calories and will defeat the purpose.
Shrink your plates
Eat off saucer-size plates—about six inches in diameter—rather than the bigger plates from the same collection. Researchers from Cornell University found that people who ate hamburgers off of saucers thought they were eating an average of 18 percent more calories than they really were. The people who ate off 12-inch diameter plates, however, were not so deluded.
Toss your bowls
The bigger the bowl, the more you’ll put it in. So when you’re eating foods you tend to gulp, like cereal or ice cream, use a teacup or mug as a serving dish. Save the big bowls for salads and broth-based soups.
Drink from tall glasses
Your tumblers may look short and squat, but they can hold a lot of liquid. People pour about 19 percent more liquid into short, wide glasses than they do in tall ones, according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Or brains focus more on something’s height than its width, so short glasses don’t appear as full to us.
Choose the teaspoon
Smaller dishes make food look big in comparison. Same goes for spoons, even when you’re just serving yourself: Your brain thinks that overflowing teaspoon is filled with food, even though logically you may know that a full tablespoon still has more on it. Another Cornell study found that people who used three-ounce serving spoons served themselves nearly 15 percent more food than those who scooped using smaller two-ounce spoons.
Additional reporting from Blake Miller
Image: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
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