“Everything in moderation”…that’s one of the few clichés that doesn’t get old. It’s absolutely true. Very rarely is something food-wise so bad for you that you should never touch it. We call things like that poisons, not food. But, you can have too much of even the best foods. Carrot-orange skin, anyone?

Portion control is one of the most fundamental principles of weight-loss and, even more-so, longterm healthy eating principles. It can be very hard to do this on the fly. Our eyes are big, highly optimistic, and very convincing about what is a “proper” portion. Not everyone can carry a food scale around with them to come up with official measurements (though it’s not a bad thing to do) but there are easy ways to do some portion control preparation ahead of time.

Break down your binges and create single servings of foods you splurge on: Scoop servings of ice cream into plastic containers, cut chocolate into squares and store it in baggies, and pour individual juice servings into sports bottles.

The Journal of Marketing Research published a study this aspect of portion-control: packaging.

Participants who received six chocolates in a single package finished them in two days on average; those whose six came individually wrapped downed them in four days. The act of opening another bag or container gives us time to consider how much we’re wolfing down, says lead study author Amar Cheema, Ph.D., of Washington University in St. Louis.

That only solves part of the problem, but if you can control your binge-worthy pleasures, like ice cream, then you’ve gone a long way toward establishing permanent portion-control principles that will both aid you in the short-term goals of weight loss but also in your long-term health strategy.

Tags: binging, healthy eating, Lose Weight, portion control, weight control, weight loss