Why Livliga Works — It is a System

 Livliga is a System of Right-Sized Tableware

We are often asked not only “Why Livliga works” but also “Why is it unique.” There are three main reasons Livliga is unique. It is because it uses the psychology of eating in the actual design of the tableware. It also has built in measurement in each piece of the suite of dinnerware, serveware and glassware that makes up the line of product offered. But perhaps most importantly, it is designed as a system. Together the Livliga suite of tableware acts as a system to make it effortlessly mindful to eat healthful portions.

Livliga has three patents. One of those patents is specifically for the unique system we have created with our right-sized tableware. Nowhere can you find dishes and drinkware, muchness serveware, like serving spoons, that are all right-sized and designed to work together to serve up just right portions. In the supersized world we live in everything we use tends to be oversized which makes serving up standard servings impossible. 

To make right-sized eating an every-meal and daily habit you need a system of right-sized beautiful tableware that makes it a pleasant, possible, and satisfying experience. Livliga makes it an achievable process that can become a lifestyle of healthy living.

Bottom line, Livliga offers a suite of products all designed to work well together and provide a system of right-sized tableware to support mindful eating as well as your health and wellness goals. Interested in finding out more information? Visit the product use page on our website and then take time to discover all the designs we have and choose the one you love the most to use mindfully in your healthy lifestyle!

 

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The Science & Psychology Behind the Plate

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Portion Balance…The New Term in Town

Portion Balance is the new term in town. What does it mean? A food ecosystem where at every eating occasion, everyone desires and is able to choose and enjoy balanced food portions in support of a healthy lifestyle. Admittedly this is idealistic but it does describe the perfect food environment we all want and should be supported in achieving.

It is a world of balanced meals of just right portions served up on perfectly sized dishes in a room designed to help you sit down, slow down, and enjoy your meal. Honestly, in order for us to live healthier lives we will need to change our food environment. Nothing else has worked because until we right size the food we eat we will not be able to move the needle on the obesity epidemic.

The shocking statistics present us with some grim facts. Since 2000 the overall obesity rate for adults has increased from 30.5% to 42.4% in 2018. For those considered severely obese the rate has more than doubled in the same time frame from 4.7% to 9.2%, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Now with the global pandemic most scientists are predicting even higher increases of obesity for adults and children. Obesity directly affects our health and fuels health issues like diabetes, heart disease, multiple forms of cancer, as well as other diseases, which are all the leading causes of death. It is evident we have to find better ways to help people succeed in living a healthier life. We have to find a better solution than those we have tried and that have clearly failed.

There is a group that has been created called the Portion Balance Coalition that is made up of large corporations and organizations producing our foods and beverages as well as monitoring them for the public good. It is a group that is broad and diverse that has come together to tackle the issue of obesity through portion control. It includes Nestlé, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the American Heart Association, and several others. These businesses have the power to move the needle for better health.

We as individuals also have an important role to play. We can work on creating a healthier food environment in our own home using the tools and information available to help us. We can also reach out to corporations and organizations to ask them to help change the quality of food and obscene quantities of food that are marketed to us through ads, packaged goods, restaurants and schools. Until we demand a change we will be faced with battling obesity and its health consequences in our lives and the lives of the ones we care about.

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Healthy Lifestyle & Weight Loss

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Portions and Nutrition—how do they relate?

Food and nutrition are the way that we get fuel, providing energy for our bodies. We need to replace nutrients in our bodies with a new supply every day. Water is an important component of nutrition. Fats, proteins, and carbohydrates are all required. Portions are how much we choose to eat of those foods and nutrition.

We have all come to realize that what we eat and how much we eat are both very important to our health. We need to fuel our bodies with the nutrients we need to thrive…everyday. However, eating more of what we need beyond what our daily requirements are to fuel our bodies, even of healthy ingredients, is not necessarily beneficial. Our bodies cannot make good use of excess. More is not better. That is where portions, specifically, serving sizes, come in.

Servings are based on the amount of calories an average person burns in a day and then is broken down into specific amounts that a person should eat per meal.  It is an average based on consuming 2000 calories per day and assumes a “net neutral” outcome…meaning you will burn in a day the same amount as you consume. This is how we keep from gaining any weight and how we can also lose weight, if that is our goal. This is a great place to start. In reality, according to a recent report provided by The Food and Agriculture Organization, Americans eat an average of over 3,600 calories a day. This is well above the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations and why people are becoming increasingly obese and facing a whole host of health challenges from heart disease and diabetes to many cancers…and these are just a few examples of obesity-related diseases.

Do any of us really know what a serving size is for any given food or food group? Nope, we don’t. It is not something we are taught and yet it is incredibly important information for us to learn so we can make informed decisions and choices regarding what we eat and how much we eat. That is why Livliga was created; to provide a framework and guide for people to serve up and measure their food in right sized balanced portions.

Interestingly, a new group has been formed to take on portion control in a big way as the next frontier in battling the obesity epidemic. The Portion Balance Coalition, according to their website, is a multi-sector collaborative whose members have come together to identify, co-create, and implement demand- and supply-side innovations in support of a balanced, healthy diet. The members of this collaborative include: Nestlé, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the American Heart Association, as well as others. This is an exciting opportunity to promote real change in the super-sized world we live in where portions and nutrition could once again be aligned to support people in living a healthy lifestyle.

Portions and nutrition go hand in glove together. We cannot manage our weight or get the balanced meals with the nutrients we need to thrive without paying attention to both. Our health and quality of life depends on it!

Download Our Free eBook:
Healthy Lifestyle & Weight Loss

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Kids, Diabetes and Healthy Eating...Some Helpful Tips

Portion Control is the Key to Success

There are so many helpful resources available on the internet these days. I recently visited the Joslin Diabetes Center website to find out more about their recommendations regarding healthy eating for kids living with diabetes. At the top of the page I saw the title “Key To Success: Portion Control.” The article on the page begins “The amount of food you eat is closely related to blood glucose control. If you eat more food than is recommended in your meal plan, your blood glucose (sugar) will go up. The only way you can tell if you are eating the right amount is to measure your foods carefully.” No matter what age we are or what chronic condition we may be living with and managing, eating healthy is all about what we eat and how much we eat. Portion Control is the key to success.

5 Portion Control Tips to Help Kids Living with Diabetes 

LivSpoons are a Great Tool for Easy Measuring

1. Easy measuring.  Finding ways to measure that are easy and repeatable is a must when we know portion control and portioning amounts is critical to our health. Having a scale to weigh your food and having measuring/serving spoons to portion your foods are must haves. Check out LivSpoons for easy measuring. They come in 6 measuring cup sizes and are handy for prepping food as well as serving it up in right-sized amounts. They are made of stainless steel so they are durable and kid tested!

We Need Balance with the Combination of Foods We Eat

2. Balanced Diet. We know that just eating one type of food isn’t good for us. We need balance in our diet to live health. We also know each food type has its own portion size. How do we know how much to eat of any given type of food to eat a balanced diet?  There is a handy line of dinnerware that has built into its design what a balanced meal looks like and also what the standard measurements are for each food group. They even have a kid’s line designed, Kidliga, just for a kid’s right-sized eating!

Make Measurement a Part of your Daily Routine

3. Practice, Practice, Practice. Living life as our healthiest selves requires eating healthy consistently. In order to eat well we need to create a system of healthy habits that is doable, repeatable and sustainable. Setting up your kitchen for healthy eating is key. Making measurement a part of your routine when prepping and serving food then becomes the way you do things so it becomes a habit. Right-sized dishware for the whole family is an easy way to make right-sized eating your new norm.

Portioning our Snacks as well as our Meals helps us to be Mindful

4. Mindfulness. A lot of our eating is done without thinking. How many times have you opened a bag of potato chips to eat just a few and then realize several minutes later you have eaten the whole bag!? If we are not present when we eat we can end up eating way more than we intended. When living with diabetes it is important to be present when you eat and aware of what you are eating so you can manage your blood glucose and insulin dosage appropriately. Portioning snacks as well as meals helps us to avoid mindless eating.

Eating Healthy is a Way of Life

5. Involve the entire family in Healthy Eating. Eating healthy is a way of life. If one person is living with a chronic illness, like diabetes, it affects the entire family. Healthy eating benefits everyone. Creating a healthy eating environment at home and making it a part of everyday life makes sustaining and, perhaps more importantly, enjoying a healthy lifestyle possible. Looking for some healthy recipes your entire family can enjoy? The Live Vibrant blog is a great resource!

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Emotional Barriers to Sustained Weight Loss Success

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Top 8 Healthy Lifestyle Blogs

As we head towards the weeks ahead when school starts, fall activities set in, and we get back to the “normal” pattern of our lives it is good to remind ourselves of what it takes to get back in gear and sustain our healthy lifestyles. To help with that we thought it would be fun to provide our top 8 Healthy Lifestyle Blogs for some ideas and inspiration.

Let’s start at the beginning…

How to Start a Healthy Lifestyle

It is hard for a lot of us, but when it comes to our health, we need to be the first priority. What do you think needs to change first in your life to help you get started on the road to more health and happiness?

8 Great Tips for Right—Sizing Your Food Environment

Our eyes make all the decisions about the food we eat. That is why our food environment has such a profound effect on us, and the decisions we make about the food we eat.

6 Ways Livliga Helps Us Eat a Balanced Diet

We focus so much on “dieting” and “losing weight.” When we talk about losing weight or even about weight management, it all centers on the types of foods we eat, like whole foods, or about the amounts of food we eat. Very rarely do we talk about the importance of the combination of foods we eat to fuel our bodies and live our healthiest life.

Nutrition is about portion AND proportion

Do the words “portion” and “proportion” automatically mean anything to you? It took me a while to understand what they meant as well as why both are important to pay attention to when planning meals and menus as part of a healthy lifestyle. It is all about what a balanced meal looks like including the foods that make up the meal as well as the amounts of those foods that are best for us for eating healthy and not overeating.

Impulse Eating—Grazing While Fixing Meals

I have a lot of issues when it comes to eating. I have come to understand I am not alone in this reality. As I focus on my Year of Intention I have committed to unveiling my eating quirks to look at them, understand them better, be mindful of them and ultimately switch things up so I can continue to advance in my journey of an ever improving healthy lifestyle.

Portion Distortion—The Real Danger of Eating Out of The Bag

I have so many bad habits. Some are harder to change than others. It is really about being mindless to what we are doing, a zombie-like state. I have had way too many repetitive, mindless moments. I came across a great article that reminded me NEVER to eat out of a bag. Pre-portioning is definitely the way to go before eating.

The Secret to Avoiding Destructive Eating Habits at Restaurants

I have been in a long search to discover the secret to avoiding destructive eating habits at a restaurant. Recently my family has been eating more meals out in restaurants. I have found myself wanting to drift back to old, destructive habits. It is hard to break old habits. No one understands this better than I do. But it is possible. 

Scarfing Food is Not Good For Our Health

When I sit down to eat a meal I tend to dive in and scarf the food on my plate. You would think I hadn’t eaten in weeks or that I was in a contest to see who can finish their meal first. It is a mindless habit.

Here’s to you and living life as your healthiest self!

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Food Portions Explained

Understanding our portions is a must if we want to live a healthy lifestyle. It is the “101” of weight management. Not calorie counting. Interestingly, this is not something we are ever taught. Our only reference for portion sizes are super sized references of Big Macs, Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese and all the other foods we see advertised in magazines, on TV, in restaurants, and even our grocery stores.

So how do we figure out what a right-sized portion is? This is another source of ongoing confusion. A portion is what we are served and typically eat. It can be any size. In fact, think about the portions we are served at restaurants. They tend to be huge, right? That is because a portion is what we are served but it can be made up of any number of servings. A serving is what we need to become familiar with because that is how amounts are measured and how we are provided information in terms of ingredients, nutrients, calories, pre-packaged portions and recipes.

Servings are based on the amount of calories an average person burns in a day and then is broken down into specific amounts that a person should eat per meal.  It is an average based on consuming 2000 calories per day and assumes a “net neutral” outcome…meaning you will burn in a day the same amount as you consume. This is how we keep from gaining any weight and how we can also lose weight, if that is our goal. This is a great place to start. In reality, according to a recent report provided by The Food and Agriculture Organization, Americans eat an average of over 3,600 calories a day. This is well above the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations and why people are becoming increasingly obese and facing a whole host of health challenges from heart disease and diabetes to many cancers…and these are just a few examples of obesity-related diseases.

So what are those standard serving sizes? Serving sizes are different according to the different food groups. Take a look at the back of a Livliga dinner plate. Measurements are broken down by each food group: Fruit or Vegetable (1 cup), Starch or Grain (¾ or ½ cup depending on age, gender or activity level), Protein ( 2- 6 ounces) and we even show the suggested serving size for sauces, gravies, dips, condiments and salad dressings (⅛ cup)! For drinks the standard serving size is also shown (8 ounces). And for foods you put in a bowl like cereal, soups, chili, yogurt, etc., you can see the standard serving sizes as 1 cup (first fill line) or 1 ½ cup (the second, higher fill line). It is important that we know what a standard, recommended serving size is so we can be mindful of how much we are eating and the impact it will have on our health and quality of life.

To get control of our food environment it is imperative we learn about serving sizes. We also need to understand the difference between a serving size and a portion. It is equally important that we take steps to right size our food environment. One way to do that is to cook and prepare more meals at home. That way we can control what foods we eat as well as the amounts served. Additionally, we need to have tools and a system in place to help us right size our meals. Experience and research shows that it is virtually impossible to eat right sized amounts from super sized glasses, plates and bowls. To make portions look like enough we’ll end up filling up those super-sized dishes. If we right size our tableware it becomes much easier to right size what we eat.

From portion size to serving size and from super sized to right sized we are faced with creating a new norm that will support us in a healthier and happier life.

Download Our Free eBook:
The Science & Psychology Behind the Plate

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