I talked earlier about learning about portion size; and how the larger portion sizes in restaurants has skewed what is seen as a serving. Eating larger portions makes weight gain easy, and if you think you are eating one serving of any food but actually eating two or even three, you may not even know why you can’t lose weight. Your best friend in this area is a measuring cup. Most packaged food has a panel somewhere on the container which lists the serving size, along with other nutritional information, such as calories, fat and salt content, vitamins, etc.; in many cases, the serving size is described in cups, or fractions of cups (1/2 cup, 1/4 cup, etc.) By using a measuring cup, it is easy to see if you are eating a single serving. After using the measuring cup for a while, it becomes easier to judge serving sizes without the measuring cup. I still find it good practice to go back to measuring servings periodically, to avoid getting back to eating larger and larger portions. Using a measuring cup is another easy step to simple, natural weight loss.