America's Distorted Portion Sizes

Have you ever been to restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory or Claim Jumper where you have enough food on your plate to last 2-3 days? On top of it, you get complimentary bread, an appetizer, and then dessert? Let's just say that you want to order the Cajun Jumbalaya Pasta from the Cheesecake Factory and the low-carb cheesecake for dessert. There is at least 1200 calories in that slice of cheesecake alone, and that doesn't even include the bread (buttered of course), or the appetizer. Considering the average person should consume 1200-2500 calories a day, the entire splurge at the restaurant seems a little high don't you think?

Portion sizes have nearly doubled in the last 20 years. Do you think this falls under the belief that it's better to get more for your money? To make matters even worse, we know which foods taste good, and who can ever stop at just one piece of pizza, or the serving size of 2 Oreo Cookies for 160 calories? Imagine what kind of healthy and life-long changes you would see and experience from taking in a little less and being a little more reasonable with how hungry you really are.

MSN gives us a few tips on how to break the habit of over-indulging on foods that we love so much.

And finally, for those of you that really want to make the change into a lifestyle of realistic portions.

Written by: Breanna Dobbe