Everyday Systems

As you may already know, I'm French, so I belong to the nation of "thin" people that Reinhard compares to the US nation. I am on the NoS diet, trying to comply to the 1 plate rule, but some discussions make me wonder whether size plates are the same in France and in USA.

So I took my fingers and measured during meals :
- At home, our regular plate is square, with 7" sides. Our "big" plates are round, with a diameter of 9".
- At my parents' place, the plates are round, 7".

What size are you using for your plates in USA, Australia, UK, etc... ? Well I mean, at home.

TUK wrote:As you may already know, I'm French, so I belong to the nation of "thin" people that Reinhard compares to the US nation. I am on the NoS diet, trying to comply to the 1 plate rule, but some discussions make me wonder whether size plates are the same in France and in USA.

So I took my fingers and measured during meals :
- At home, our regular plate is square, with 7" sides. Our "big" plates are round, with a diameter of 9".
- At my parents' place, the plates are round, 7".

What size are you using for your plates in USA, Australia, UK, etc... ? Well I mean, at home.

My dinner plates are 10 1/2". That's about average, maybe even a little on the small side. Salad plates are about 8".

When I started No-S, I completely missed the one plate rule. I took "seconds" to actually mean seconds -- more than one serving. So I ate one serving of whatever was being served, whether or not it was on one plate. By the time I realized that there was a one-plate rule, I couldn't see a reason to change what I'd been doing.

wosnes wrote:When I started No-S, I completely missed the one plate rule. I took "seconds" to actually mean seconds -- more than one serving. So I ate one serving of whatever was being served, whether or not it was on one plate. By the time I realized that there was a one-plate rule, I couldn't see a reason to change what I'd been doing.

You're right. Choose the rule and comically stick to it.

I chose the one plate rule because I wanted not to discuss, every time I wanted to have a REAL meal with carrots AND tomato salad AND a steak AND pasta AND cheese with bread AND a fruit, what constituted exactly a "serving". One plate makes it a no-brainer, and enforces small servings.

I started this topic because I found that using standard French plates for this rule makes me feel unsatisfied. So I wondered about what size Reinhard's plate was...

The U.S. is famous for having large plates. The average plate has increased since the 70's to about 10 inches, but many here on No S, including Reinhard, I think, have purposely gone back to smaller plates, such as luncheon plates. I use my big ones for dinner.

oolala53 wrote:smaller plates, such as luncheon plates. I use my big ones for dinner.

What I found on the net says that luncheon plates are about 8.5" to 9.5". What size are yours, oolala ?

I'm in Australia, and have what I consider "normal" round dinner size plates. Total diameter is around 10", however that would include putting food on the decorative rim, which isn't done. The actual plate, excluding rim, is 7" diameter. That's what I fill, three times a day.

If I am eating from a bowl (e.g. breakfast cereal), I put that on the plate. If I want anything else, it has to fit on the plate around the bowl. I don't own any bowls that would be larger than our dinner plates.

NOS concept of the plate is to make you aware how much you'll be eating and hopefully shame you into eating less.

If you are eating many smaller plates, you may want to place them all on a "normal" plate or place them mentally on a "virtual normal" plate if a physical plate is not feasible (i.e. a restaurant).

Reinhard does talk of shame, but the plate is as much for just having a limiting factor. Shame is for when you're piling the food up meal after meal with no reduction in eating. (Frankly, for most repeat dieters, if shame worked to motivate them, they'd all be skinny.) I've eaten less over time, but it wasn't because I was ashamed of how much I put on the plate. I just don't need as much as often.

My dinner plates are 10.8 inches. My luncheon plates are 9.5. The next smallest plate I have is 8" and I gotta say a meal looks just plain silly on that to meat 30 months in. It's about enough room for a piece of toast and half an apple. I do use it for breakfast sometimes, but for other meals? But maybe I'm in denial.

I usually cover 1/3 to 1/2 of my plate with freggies and only one fist each of starch and protein, sometimes two of starch. The reduced size of the servings I'd need.. I don't know, I'm just not ready to try that. But it's not out of the question.

oolala53 wrote:Frankly, for most repeat dieters, if shame worked to motivate them, they'd all be skinny.

Reinhard stated "No Seconds. No Seconds means limit each meal to one physical plate. You can fit a lot onto a plate, but you can't do it without seeing that it's a lot. That gentle pressure on your eyeballs is surprisingly effective. In the beginning, some whopping plates are to be expected. That's part of the educational process. Because you can't sneak your excess anymore, because it confronts you head on, your whopping plates will gradually shame you into less whopping ones."

and "It's like the one plate rule in the no-s-diet. On the one hand, it's very clear. One plate is clearly different from two. Two glasses are clearly different from three. On the other hand, there is wiggle room. You *can* pile a mountain of food onto one plate and you *can* get one of those enormous Bavarian beer steins and fill it up with everclear, but you can' t do either without seeming like an astonishing glutton or drunkard. You can't hide your excess in lots of dainty little increments, and excess, when it's out in the open like that, is embarrassing, it's disgusting, even to just yourself, it's shameful."

and (from the book) "When it's all right there in front of you, on one plate, you can't deceive yourself into thinking that you aren't eating a lot."(more on pages 82, 83, 84 and 85 of the book)

Of course there are a lot of shameless people. Who hasn't witnessed a sordid act in public.

Shame will not work on those folks. But NOS contends - and I agree - that people, including myself, sneak in excess food and delude themselves into thinking they don't eat a lot (it happens to me on S days).

A perfect example: An overweight co-worker, that complained he could not lose weight, claimed that if you ate fast, calories didn't count because the body did not have time to absorb them (?). it's not that he was shameless, he was in denial.

That's one of the main objectives of the one plate rule.

It sounds like I might have offended you. Sorry!

oolala53 wrote:It sounds like I might have offended you. Sorry!

Not at all! Nothing to be sorry about!

I just wanted to emphasize Reinhard's concept of shame because once I grasped it, after reading the book and site several times, NOS started working wonders for me. This might help others.

My dinner plates are 10 in in diameter but only about 7 1/2 in of that is usable space since there is a raised decorative border around the outside.

Okay, so given all your input, I can say that French plates are indeed about one to two inches smaller in diameter than American plates. Indeed, our big decorated plates are 9" in diameter, with 3" of decorated rim.

No wonder I feel unsatisfied with barely filling a 7" plate on a reguar basis.

TUK wrote:No wonder I feel unsatisfied with barely filling a 7" plate on a reguar basis.

Your plates are the same size as mine. Could it be what you're filling them with? I found out the hard way the other day that if I fill the plate with white bread and fruit, without any protein or fibrous starch or veggies, I'm a very hungry woman before the next meal. (Also, I'm a 5'7" woman, so that might make a difference.)

Let's be conscious that it is not the size of the plate that dictates what we eat, it's what we put on it.

TUK, I'm confused.

From what I've heard and read from people who have traveled to or spent extended periods of time or live in France, portion/serving sizes there are smaller than they are here. Even though the French eat meals in courses and eat a wider variety of foods at meals (as evidenced by the example you gave above), they consume less food and fewer calories at meals than we do.

Using the meal you described above, most Americans would have a 10" or 10½" (or larger!) plate filled to overflowing. Many No-Sers might get all of it on the same size plate by having smaller portions, but many would likely omit cheese, bread and fruit because it wouldn't fit on one plate!

Actually, Wansink has shown that people who consistently use smaller plates eat less. Of course, even if you put all dense foods on a small plate and pile it up, you could end up eating a lot of calories.

I would not be able to get the food I need to satisfy hunger (I'm pretty sure) if I didn't have either lunch or dinner on a 9" or larger plate and I'm not ready to experiment with that. But I can get a dessert bowl of soup, a small serving of protein, a small starch, a lot of veggies, a piece of fruit, a wedge of cheese and a small slice of bread on my dinner plate and still have it be fewer calories than two slices of pizza. Not that calories are the issue.

Also, Wansink has found that plates with a border encourage less eating but he claims there are limitations to that. The color and the border design matters, he claims. I've also read that blue plates have a similar effect because blue is subconsciously unappetizing (not many blue foods). But I think we are really talking about refinements here.

TUK, I say go ahead and use a larger plate, at least for a few months.

The plate size you should use probably also depends on whether you are male/female, how tall you are, how active you are and your overall frame. I wouldn't think too much about other people's plate size. Whatever works for you and gets your body to a healthy weight without "deprivation dieting".

oolala53 wrote:TUK, I say go ahead and use a larger plate, at least for a few months.

Actually, sometimes the 7" plate is satisfying, sometimes it's not. When I feel I'm more hungry than usual, I use the 9" plate. That's about twice a week. On evenings. (I wonder if the plates they use at my work are not even 6")

A 9" plate looks like a lot of food to me.

wosnes wrote:Using the meal you described above, most Americans would have a 10" or 10½" (or larger!) plate filled to overflowing. Many No-Sers might get all of it on the same size plate by having smaller portions, but many would likely omit cheese, bread and fruit because it wouldn't fit on one plate!

Actually, you're right. My bread, cheese and fruit are almost cliffhanging everytime. But due to the nature of the other parts of the meal, they fit nicely into the plate.