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fries: about ten fries (a Wendy’s Great Biggie gives you about a hundred fries—are they kidding?)
A blueberry muffin: should be about 1.5 ounces (the size of an egg). A regular muffin from the corner deli is about seven times as big
One serving of butter, margarine, or mayonnaise: the size of the tip of your thumb
A chunk of cheese as an hors d’oeuvre: the size of four dice
An apple: the size of a baseball
One serving (one cup) milk, yogurt, or chopped fresh greens: a tennis ball
Snacks (such as one serving of nuts or one-half serving of pretzels): can fit in one cupped palm
A half-cup of veggies: can fit in one cupped palm
One teaspoon of salad dressing: fits in the cap of a 16-ounce bottle of water
One serving of cooked pasta: half a baseball
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    Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon
    You don’t have to walk around with a tape measure to figure out what a controlled portion of food looks like. Mostly, you have to use your common sense. Portion control doesn’t mean you have to eat what you hate—exactly the opposite. It just means you have to get in the habit of limiting what you love.
    For example, my very favorite food in the whole world is bacon. You know how in some diets they ask if it would kill you if you couldn’t have the one thing you really love? Yeah, it would kill me if I couldn’t have bacon. I love bacon. I like turkey bacon, I like pork bacon. I like thick bacon, I like thin bacon. I’m like that little dog on television: “Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon.” I put bacon on baked potatoes, and I put it on an egg sandwich. Today, I had half a chicken club sandwich, and I put two strips of bacon on it.
    Tricking Myself
    Now, here’s my biggest secret: I trick myself. Normally, two years ago, I would have four or five strips of bacon on that chicken club. Today—just two. It’s a huge difference, but—guess what—I’ve come to the point where I don’t even notice that I’m not chowing down on four or five strips. I do not deny myself my favorite thing in the whole world, but I limit it. I treat this change in lifestyle as a great victory because I don’t want anyone, ever, to take away my bacon. I trick myself into thinking there are four slices on that sandwich, and because I’ve gotten so used to the two, it tastes and feels like four. By the way, on that chicken sandwich, I put a bit of low-fat mayonnaise on one side of the bread and nothing on the other (tricking myself into thinking there’s mayonnaise on both sides). A vat of mayonnaise on the bread, incidentally, doesn’t qualify as tricking yourself. Tomatoes, a slice of onion, some lettuce, and that bacon, and then the last step: cut it in half and only eat half. There’s a great, portion-controlled chicken club.
    If I could design my perfect dinner, this would be it: a portion-controlled steak, a satisfying half-plate of broccoli rabe, and a couple of tablespoons of mashed potatoes.
    My perfect breakfast? Two strips of bacon and one scrambled egg with a little cheese (I don’t have a cholesterol problem, so I allow myself this). No bread—although if I’m really hungry, I’ll eat half a slice. Never, ever a bagel. Here’s a little-known fact the bagel companies try to keep quiet: do you know that one bagel contains the calorie equivalent of five slices of bread?
    Tonight, I’m going to have a portion-controlled piece of roast chicken: I’ll put a whole chicken in the oven with some spices on it, bake it at 350 degrees, and in an hour, it’s done. Then, I’ll carve off my deck-of-cards portion (and put the rest away), add a spoonful of mashed potatoes, a lot of asparagus, and maybe a salad. What do I drink? More water than any human being ever drank. There are small bottles of water next to my bed in a small bedroom refrigerator. There are bottles of water in my living room and on my terrace. If you walk into my home, I’ll offer you water first thing. It’s not only a great weight-losing device, it’s the best thing