When we usually look at bento boxes, the first thing we notice is how beautiful and delicious the food is. However, looks isn't the only thing special about bento boxes. They're also a great way to shed some weight through portion control. Some people have even claimed to lose up to 30 pounds with the help of bentos! Here are some quick tips on how to look great and eat great with our bento boxes:
1. Count your calories and nutrients
The first step to any healthy diet is counting calories. Usually it's a chore but it has actually become quite fun thanks to a lot of clever, new apps and websites that have been made available to us.
One of our favorites is MyFitnessPal. You can set your own weight goal and it will automatically calculate how many calories and nutrients you need to eat. Super easy! It's great because the food database has virtually all foods, Japanese and non-Japanese, so you can see what is the perfect ratio of your favorite foods to meet your calorie and nutrient goals.
These are some other options in case you are interested: 5 Best Calorie Counters
2. Choose the Right-Sized Bento Box
One of the most important things about preparing food in a Bento Box is to make sure the food is tightly-packed to prevent your beautiful arrangement from turning into one big mess.
To do this, you'll need a small or medium-sized bento box. Our small bento boxes fill up to ~500ml while our medium bento boxes 500-780ml. We recommend our California Style Bento as it has two stacks of small compartments so you can fit a variety foods without going overboard.
3. Use a Food Partitions & Silicone Cups
This last part is the most fun. Arrangement!
Using the food partitions (AKA dividers or separators) that are included with the bentos are helpful for controlling your carbs. You can move these around to create the ideal portion size of food like rice.
Gel Cool Single Berry Blue w/ partition Shikiri Bento w/ built-in cups
We also have cute dividers and silicone cups sold separately so you can customize the look of your "diet" bento.
Cup Collection | 4 Colors Lettuce Cups Balan Lettuce and Leaf
4. Enjoy!
Now that you've finished making your bento, now you can eat happily while controlling your portions. You'll even find that somehow, with the fully-packed bento, it has some sort of psychological effect where your brain tells you that you are eating enough! It takes some effort, but bento-making is always fun! With a little practice, you'll be making smart, portion-controlled bentos like these:
1 comment
omg this are so cute. Glad I came across this site when I was search for bento box for portion control. Thank you :)