Kick Off Week Day 1 - Wednesday

For this first week, I'm going to post a tip each day.

Something that I have tried, that has worked for me.

Today's weight loss tip is......

purchase a digital food scale (or start using the one you already have)

I have had this Weight Watchers scale for about 6 years now and it is an invaluable tool in portion control.

My scale toggles between ounces and grams.  Most times I use grams, since most food portions are listed in grams.  I usually only use ounces when I'm measuring meat.

The two biggest, most important things I've learned since using the digital food scale are:

1) If you stick to a serving size by measuring, you will find that it is usually enough

2) You can add a fraction of a serving, and find that you can get away with 1/2 of a serving.

For instance:  When I make a salad, I start with my veggies - zero points on Weight Watchers.  Then I put my plate on my Weight Watchers scale and hit the "tare" button which resets it to zero with the plate.  Now I don't know about you, but those little extras like cheese and croutons can make or break a salad.  Too much of those goodies will defeat the purpose of eating a salad.  Now I have found that a serving of shredded cheese is 28 grams (2 WW Points), but if I use my scale and sprinkle cheese on and stop when I get to 7 grams, I think that is enough cheese on my salad, and now I'm only using 1/4 of a serving.    All these little things add up. :)

You have to be aware of how much you are actually eating, and using a scale is the best way to achieve this.

Which plate are you going to put the biggest portion of food on?