Portion Control it is the key to weight loss

Portion control is the key to losing weight and keeping it off.  You have to learn what a “serving size” really is.
 I now know why I got so fat, for God sakes I was eating for 2 sometimes 3 people according to “serving sizes“. 
I was very resistant over the years to what I called “letting food consume and control my life”  well food was consuming my life, you don’t get up to 216lbs WITHOUT food being a controlling factor in your life, hello!
    I would listen to my skinny/healthy friend (Jenny) always talk about food and what was good for you and what wasn’t, reading labels on foods, & weighting and measuring everything.  I use to think that is WAY to much work, I have better things to do than keep track of what I’m eating each day.  I have now learned Jenny knew what she is doing (sorry I am so thick headed Jenny, clearly I should have listened to you over the years).  I just saw weighing, measuring, counting calories, planning in advance what your going to eat, and reading labels, as to much work, and not worth it.  Well I found that being lazy and stubborn about this isn’t worth it either.  All of these things are very very important to me now, and it has been the main factor of how I have lost the weight.  I learned it is a plain fact of life if you are going to lose weight you have to be conscious of everything you put in your mouth. 

You have to start reading labels, and find out what an acutely serving size is and more importantly what it looks like, (you will be shocked at how small a serving size really is, I know I was)

You will also be surprised how food can fool you, take a bagel or a bran muffin you may think these are good for you foods, (which they can be) but when they are big ones that is usually more than one serving size, which doubles the calories.  A lot of juices, or pop’s are more than one serving size per bottle/can.  Many foods are available in "single serving" size packages. You need to be careful because sometimes these are not just 1 single serving. Look on the package's nutrition label and find the "servings per package" or "servings per container" section.  If it says "1" then you do not need to measure or count the food out to know the your caloric intake will be, but sometimes it will say 1.5 serving or 2 servings per package, then you have just doubled your calories and didn’t even know it, so read your labels carefully.

I would assume everyone has measuring spoons and cups, but probably not everyone has a kitchen food scale, I would highly suggest purchasing one, it is well worth the money and will be so helpful for you.  The one I got cost a bit more than I normally would spend, but again worth it to me.  Mine is a digital one with a lot of bells and whistles, I got mine from the shopping channel QVC, but you can find them anywhere, Fred Meyers, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Wal-Mart, really most stores carry them.  I still for the most part weigh and measure everything, because it is to easy to falter.  I sometimes will sit down with my bag of baked chips and take out  a handful (which for my size hands I have found a normal handful not overly big of chips is “about” an ounce of chips which is a serving size)  BUT I will sit there and eat that serving and not even think about it and dive back in the bag for another handful, I sat there one day and did this THREE times, that was 3 serving of chips, NOT something I needed.  So now I try to make sure I weigh out ONE ounce of chips (1 serving size) and sit down and eat that, I don’t take the bag with me and eat directly out of the bag, because it is just to easy to over eat that way.  You just don’t realizes how much your eating unless you weigh/measure out each serving size. 
I would suggest if you are not familiar with what an actual serving size is and looks like, dish yourself up a regular meal like you normally would then read the label of what a serving size for that particular food is, and get out your measuring cups and scale and measure out everything you just severed up.  I did this with Roy when he started eating better, I had him serve up noodles for spaghetti, then I took it all out and measured it all, he had 5 to 6 serving of noodles, he had no idea what a serving size was or should look like. A bowl of cereal is another one I would over eat on.  Most cereals a serving size is ¾ to 1 cup, if you take your average bowl and dump cereal in it, it will be 2 to 3 serving of cereal.  
So start checking your labels to see what a serving size is suppose to be and weight and measure out your foods.  I like to use my fitness pal web site (there is a link for them on the right side of my page) there are many calorie counting web sites out there, you put in your current info, (weight, height, what you want to weight) and it will tell you how many calories you should be eating each day, and has an area you can keep track of what you eat each day, it’s a easy and free way to get you started to keeping track of what your putting in your mouth each day.