Watch those portion sizes!

We live in a super-sized society when everything to do with food seems to be getting bigger! Cereal bowls, soup bowls, plates, wine glasses, dessert dishes – they’re all much larger than they used to be and it isn’t good for us.

I am sure that those fabulous and enormous platters that your haute cuisine is served upon in a stylish restaurant were not designed to be full! So when we see them in John Lewis or Harrods, we delight at their magnificence and buy them for those special occasions when we want to impress our guests and make our dining table look impressive. The problem is that, whilst some wondrous chef creates a work of art on 15% of the plate’s surface in the restaurant, when we serve it up at home it doesn’t quite work out that way. To present such a dish would cause ridicule. So we fill it!

Last year we launched Rosemary Conley Portion Pots as an aid to help folk quickly measure their appropriate size portion of cereal, rice, pasta, baked beans, peas, wine, orange juice, and so on. They are brilliantly simply and extremely helpful.

Each morning I use my yellow Portion Pot to measure my serving of Fruit ‘n' Fibre and it is enough to keep be going – just – until lunchtime. When we are serving rice with our evening meal, if I’m cooking for just me, I can use the blue Portion Pot to measure enough basmati rice for one. If I’m cooking for the family then I drain the cooked rice and can take a red Portion Pot for the equivalent quantity of rice but measured now it is cooked. Simple!

If you are eating healthily and cannot understand why the weight isn’t shifting as quickly as it should, I bet you it’s your portions that are too big.

Treat yourself to some small cereal bowls, smaller wine glasses and plates and watch the lbs slip away. If you would like some Portion Pots, log on to www.rosemaryconley.com to buy them or join one of our classes when you will be given some with your New Member’s Pack.