3 Meal-Structuring Tips For The Low-Fat Lifestyle

Always know what you're going to have for dinner well before you begin preparing a meal. If you get into the habit of doing that, there will be no pressing need to measure portions, count calories or forgo your favorite foods. When you plan your meals, eating appropriate portions will follow naturally.

1. Planning a meal begins at the kitchen table, not with knife and fork but with pencil and paper. For most people, planning meals about a week in advance works best. Whether you're going to be trying some new recipes, relying on family favorites, or both, it's extremely helpful to have the actual list of ingredients right in front of you. It's worth double-checking to make sure that you have all the appropriate condiments for each recipe or meal: Parmesan cheese for the pasta, lemon for the fish, yogurt for the baked potato and so forth. Herbs, spices and condiments help give food the quality of being a "meal," which is exactly the quality that we're striving for.

2. Try to buy only as much food as will fit into your planned menus. There are two ways to do this. One is to make every effort not to buy excessive amounts of food in the first place, and the other is to learn how to use leftovers in a creative but planned manner. If you're the kind of person who knows how to turn leftovers into a good lunch or dinner, you have a definite advantage here. If not, you can either ask friends for tips, buy some recipe books or be especially diligent when making your purchases.

That may mean, for instance, going a little out of your way to buy meat from a butcher instead of the supermarket, in order to get the portions you really want. Instead of buying a whole chicken, you may want to buy a couple of split breasts or some legs. A butcher will usually give you exactly the amount of ground beef you want, and it's easy to store leftovers, raw or cooked, for future use. You may also want to emphasize non-meat items - rice, noodles, beans and potatoes - in your diet, because many are easily stored and conveniently portioned.

3. Don't put more on the table than you want to eat at that meal. In the case of the chocolate cake mentioned before, the sensible thing to do is to cut out one large piece that can be divided into a reasonable portion for everyone at the table and then wrap and store the remainder.

Putting the rest of that cake in the freezer may also be a good idea, so you won't have to "worry" that it will go bad unless you polish it off. Some cooks enjoy bringing a large roast or casserole to the table because it looks very impressive. But if experience tells you that all that food sitting on the table is going to create a desire to eat more than you really want, do the carving or serving on the kitchen counter and then store the rest before eating.