Everyone has tips on how to lose weight. Sometimes it’s good advice, but usually they’re just things that sound like good ideas until you give them a half moment’s worth of thought.

This article is about 50/50 when it comes to advice. 50% ho-hum who cares tips and 50% garbage.

Quit the clean plate club. One in four Americans eat everything they’re served no matter how big the portions, surveys reveal. A better strategy: Eat a healthy portion, then stop. It’s better to waste a little food (and save it for tomorrow) than to overload your body.

Oh yeah, I don’t have to eat EVERYTHING on my plate. If just stopping was so easy, then why do I need this tip? If only I had a built in signal from my stomach to my brain that tells me when I’m done eating. Oh, wait, I do. I don’t listen to that, so why would I listen to you?

Besides, don’t you know there are starving children in *insert country* that would just love to have that food?

Never eat directly out of the bag, box, or carton. Put the portion on the plate right away and put the package away, then sit down and enjoy.

You JUST said that we’re inclined to eat everything on the plate anyway, so what difference does it make if I eat everything in the bag or pour the bag onto a plate and eat everything that way? Is it just because I’m using a few extra calories to grab the plate?

Like big portions? Do this. Overload your plate with vegetables or salad with a smidgen of dressing or have a big, steaming bowl of broth-based soup. These water-rich, low-fat foods are so low in calories that a big portion isn’t a problem.

If I liked vegetables that much, I probably wouldn’t need these tips. I think it’s the way asparagus makes me gag that steers me towards the extra slice of pizza. To get the horrendous taste out of my mouth.

Use a salad plate as your dinner plate. Less real estate means automatic portion control.

Why stop at a salad plate? Why not use a bread & butter plate? That’s a super small portion. Maybe you could even use a child’s play set sized tea saucer and wind up thinking that ritz cracker sandwich is just too much to finish.

Tricking myself doesn’t work. Ever try to set your clock ahead 10 minutes so you’re early to stuff, but then just remember you always have an extra 10 minutes so you wind up just as late as you would have been had you not tried that little “life hack”? I’d eat the whole plate and think, “Hmmm, I didn’t actually eat a whole plate, so I could have more.”

Pack your leftovers before eating. Sure, it’s easy to put a healthy plate of food in front of you. The trouble comes when the plate empties and you have more of each food sitting in front of you in alluring serving bowls. The answer: Package and store leftovers before you sit down to eat. That way, getting seconds becomes a whole lot harder and feels more inappropriate.

Spoon onto plate, microwave for two minutes, eat. That does sound difficult. This might have been good advice back when you had to heat an oven and wait 30 minutes to reheat some food, but now?

By the way, who has alluring serving bowls? Do they have pictures of naked women on them? I don’t know what I’m talking about. I have titillating silverware.