I was just watching the Rachel Ray cooking show, at least one of them considering I think she has several syndicated shows now, at the gym at work today and in amoung they had a commercial for a new package for Blue Diamond almond products that features a portion control package that shows markings up the side showing you how many calories you are consuming by emptying the bottle that much further. Genius!

Portion control is one of the number one reasons why obesity is such a problem here in the US. We go by the mantra that bigger is better, and considering of that, restaurants try to prepare certain they supply portions that are ridiculously huge so that we feel like we’re getting more bang for our buck, making us consume hundreds more calories than we actually can burn off at any given meal, leading to fat deposits and weight gain.

While almonds are a relatively healthy food to munch on, they, like any other healthy food, can be overdone, and portion control still needs to be exercised whether you want to invent certain you are not overconsuming calories making it easier for your body to store fat and gain pounds. They’ve come out with lots of snack foods to help us control portion size, such as the 100 calorie packs that contain little chocolate chip cookies and other fun little snacks, but in a size that you will not consume more than 100 calories by eating, so you can still snack and not eat too many excess calories.

After all, that’s what excess weight is - excess calorie consumption by what you burn. You can only eat like a champ whether you’re in training for the Olympics or some similarly daunting task, ala Michael Phelps.