A lot of people think portion control just means eating less, but really, it’s all about eating smarter.
When you’re on Mounjaro or Wegovy, your appetite will reduce as an effect of the medication. But developing portion control habits now will help you to keep off the weight you lose and maintain results later.
This guide explains how portion control works, why it’s important, and simple, practical ways to build it into your daily habits.
Three key takeaways
Portion control isn’t about eating as little as possible, it’s about eating mindfully and with awareness of why you’re eating, not just what you eat.
Weight loss treatments make portion control easier by supressing hunger cues, but eating mindfully preserves results and prevents weight regain.
Practical, flexible portion control helps prevent overeating without leaving you feeling like you’re missing out.
Why portion control matters
Portion control helps you to eat mindfully and feel confident you’re putting the right stuff in your body.
It helps you reframe your approach to eating so you’re fuelling your body for success and building new, healthier habits to energise yourself.
Portion control also stops you from overeating and in doing so prevents weight regain, even if the hunger cues that weight loss injections suppress come back once you stop treatment.
Portion control makes long-term weight maintenance easier to manage and supports:
digestion
stable blood sugar levels
energy levels
feeling comfortable after eating
It reinforces healthy eating behaviours so you can enjoy satisfying, tasty meals and still feel good after eating - without energy crashes or discomfort from overindulging.
Portion control isn’t about eating off tiny plates and counting calories at every meal.
It’s about creating balanced meals that are healthy any delicious and that look as good on the plate as you feel after eating them.
These days, it’s easy to have the wrong idea about what a portion size should be. Portions in restaurants and takeaways and in pre-packaged foods have increased a lot over the years.
Food manufacturers, supermarkets, and restaurants have increasingly used larger portion sizes in dishes and packaged foods as a marketing tool in recent years.
In fact, a review of studies on portion sizes found that increasing portion sizes over the years have increased the amount of calories people consume by an average of 35%.
So, it’s understandable that many of us have trained our brains to associate seeing a lot on our plates with fuelling our bodies.
Often, visual cues like plate size, portion size, food packaging, and family habits like being told to ‘clean your plate’ growing up’ frame our attitudes about portion size.
These ingrained ideas can override our responses to natural hunger cues, so we forget to listen to our bodies.
Portion control reconnects you with what your body really needs.
How weight loss injections help
Mounjaro and Wegovy reduce your appetite by mimicking hormones that signal to your body that you’re full, and they slow digestion, helping you feel fuller on smaller portions.
This gives you the chance to retrain your portion awareness, so you notice how much food you actually need to eat to feel full.
As you gradually build this habit, you’ll instinctively know when to stop eating, which will help you to maintain your weight loss results.
“Weight loss injections aren’t a magic pill that guarantees instant weight loss, they’re a useful tool to help you design your new normal. Their appetite suppressing effects quieten down food noise so you can hear yourself think while you build new habits based on eating for energy, rather than entertainment”
To help yourself build healthy portion control habits that last, try these:
Downsize your dishes
Try using smaller plates, bowls, and dishes to serve food at mealtimes.
This helps trick your brain into feeling satisfied with less.
Take a pause
If you’re having a healthy starter, like salad or soup, pause between courses.
This gives you time to register fullness more than continuous eating, which can lead to feeling uncomfortably full once your body get the message.
Use the half-quarter-quarter rule
Use this simple visual guide to get the right ratio of foods on your plate without having to count calories:
Fill half your plate with vegetables (and maybe a little fruit).
Fill a quarter of your plate with protein (like lean cuts of meat or fish, tofu, lentils, or chickpeas).
Fill a quarter of your plate with complex carbs (like brown rice, quinoa, wholemeal pasta, barley, or oats)
Add a tablespoon of healthy fats like olive oil, nuts, or seeds.
Break out the china
Instead of eating snacks straight from the packet, try serving your snacks into a bowl.
This helps to avoid mindless eating and limit consumption, as most foods, even healthier snacks, are packaged in sizes much larger than a single portion.
Eat slowly
It takes time for your body time to register that you’re full, as your stomach and brain need to send signals back and forth to each other.
Try giving your body 15–20 minutes to register that you’ve eaten before going back for seconds.
Eat in the right order
The order in which you eat different foods actually affects how full you feel.
Research shows that eating fibre, like vegetables, first helps you to feel fuller for longer and regulate your blood sugar levels. This helps prevent the blood sugar crashes that can you have you reaching for the sugary snacks.
After fibre, eat proteins and fats next, then finally, eat carbs and sweet things last.
Use your hand as a portion guide:
for proteins make portions palm-sized
for carbs, used a cupped hand
for fats, use a thumb-sized portion
for veggies, use two full handfuls
Recognising hunger and fullness cues
Learning to recognise both hunger and fullness cues is key to making sure you’re eating the right amount.
Eat too much, and you’re likely to feel physically uncomfortable or in a low mood after eating. Eat too little, and you’re not fuelling your body with what it needs.
Striking the right balance to get the nutrients you need without overeating means learning to read your body’s hunger cues.
Understand the difference between physical hunger and the emotional desire to eat.
Signs of physical hunger:
an empty feeling in your stomach
feeling tired
feeling lightheaded (which could signal low blood sugar)
Signs your desire for food is emotional:
boredom
stress
seeking comfort, or self-soothing
Listen to early satiety (fullness) cues like:
eating more slowly
losing interest in your food
feeling warm or satisfied
Common portion control challenges (and fixes)
A lot of our approach to eating is based in habit, not hunger.
The good thing about habits is that you can reprogram them.
Challenge 1: “I feel guilty for not finishing my food.”
A lot of us may have been brought up to believe that you should always finish whatever’s on your plate and that leaving food is wasteful, or perhaps even rude, if you’re eating with family or friends.
The truth is that stopping once you’re full isn’t a waste of food, it’s respecting your body.
This also helps you save money and allows you to have leftovers for your next meal, making it easier to eat healthily at work or when travelling.
If you don’t have enough left over for a full portion, use what you have as a healthy side or combine leftovers to make a full meal. Just pop it in a container in the fridge or freezer.
Challenge 2: “I can’t tell what’s enough.”
This is a common issue for a lot of us. To make sure you’re eating the right amount, try:
weighing your food
using an app with a barcode scanner to easily track calories on prepackaged snacks
using smaller plates or crockery
using the hand method (palm sized-protein, cupped-hand carbs, thumb-sized fats)
Challenge 3: “I eat too fast.”
To slow down your eating speed, try these tips:
set your cutlery down between bites
don’t take another bite or mouthful until you’ve swallowed the one you’re on
eat with family, a friend, or colleague, and chat so you’re not taking bites so frequently
sharing dishes, so you can experience flavours with smaller portions
asking for a half portion
ask waiting staff for a leftovers box before starting your meal
“Portion control is about being mindful with food, not being too rigid or inflexible. Think of it like a calorie budget - if you overspend a little here, you can pinch a few pennies there to balance the books. Eating mindfully doesn’t mean never having any fun, it’s about improving your life and feeling energised to make the most of every moment.”
Ayesha Bashir, Prescribing Pharmacist
Challenge 5: “Healthy food still makes me overeat.”
It’s still possible to overeat, even if you’re eating healthy, nutritious food.
To fill yourself up as much as possible, so that you eat less, try eating foods that place highly on the satiety index.
This is an index of different foods that are awarded a score based on how filling they are.
Foods high on the satiety index include:
russet potatoes
ling fish fillets
porridge
oranges
red delicious apples
beef fillets
brown pasta
baked beans
Reconnecting with mindful eating
Eating mindfully is key to portion control. You can practice mindful eating by:
Slowing down and chewing food properly
Savouring textures, flavours, and smells
Turning off distractions like watching TV, texting, or scrolling on your phone at mealtimes
Appreciate your food for how it nourishes you, not just for how it tastes.
If mindless eating is an issue for you. You can keep a food journal to help you notice the moments or situation you overeat in, and what may be a trigger for these.
When portion control becomes too restrictive
Portion control should never feel too restrictive. Remember, it’s an important form of self-care that you undertake for your health, not a chore.
Sustainable eating is about structure and flexibility, not rigid obsessiveness.
If you’re feeling some anxiety about food choices and meal planning, or you feel like you’re constantly hungry, talk to a healthcare provider.
Making portion control a long-term habit
To help build portion control habits that last, try these:
Combine smaller portions with high-satiety foods with lots of fibre and protein.
Drink lots of water – it’ll wash away your urges to snack, stop your brain mistaking thirst for hunger, and help fill your stomach at mealtimes.
Plan meals ahead and do meal prep – bringing a healthy packed lunch or leftovers to work or when you travel removes the need for decision making around food, especially when you’re hungry and it’s tempting to make less healthy choices.
Keep indulgences under control – it’s fine to treat yourself sometimes, just don’t go overboard. Measure portions of high-calorie foods like sugary sweets.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to control portions while on Mounjaro or Wegovy?
The best way to control portions is to drink water before meals, eat fiber and protein first and carbs last, eat slowly and mindfully without distractions, and take a twenty-minute pause before going back for seconds.
How do I know if I’m eating the right portion sizes?
You can weigh your food or count calories if you like. Or you can use the hand rule – palm-sized proteins, cupped-hands of carbs, and thumb-sized portions of healthy fats. Vegetables should take up at least half of your plate.
Can I trust my hunger cues on weight loss injections?
Weight loss injections help regulate hunger signals, so you can trust your physical hunger cues. However, they don’t address emotional eating triggers, so if you still feel a strong desire to eat more calories than your body needs, talk to a clinician.
How long does it take to adjust to smaller portions?
This is specific to every person and depends on the kind of food you eat and whether you eat just to satisfy physical hunger cues or emotional triggers. If you’re struggling to reduce portion sizes, talk to a healthcare provider.
What happens if I still feel hungry after eating?
If you still feel hungry after eating, you can try drinking a glass of water, waiting twenty minutes, or eating some extra veg. If you frequently still feel hungry after eating, talk to your prescriber, you may need to adjust your dose.
Should I count calories or just watch portions?
This depends on which you find easier, and which helps you get the weight loss results you want. You might want to experiment with both to see which works best. The eating plan you’ll stick to is the one that feels manageable for you.
How can I manage portion control when eating out?
To manage your portions while eating out, try splitting dishes with others at your table, asking for half portions, eating side dishes of vegetables or salads as a starter, or requesting a leftovers box so you can take some home with you.
Will I need to change my portions again during maintenance?
This depends on your goals, preferences, and exercise habits. Most people will need to eat less during weight loss than in maintenance, so may choose slightly larger portions in the maintenance phase. You may also need to eat more if you’re building muscle.
What if portion control feels too restrictive?
Portion control is key to weight loss, but if it’s starting to feel too restrictive, try switching higher-calorie foods for high-volume foods so you can eat more. For example, 100g of strawberries is around 35 calories, while 100g of milk chocolate is around 550 calories.
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