the first time I went on a "diet" it was through Jenny Craig. In spite of their reliance on their packaged (and expen$sive) foods, they did have some good classes on how to pick and prepare, and set up portions, of regular food in the real world. One tactic is to use lunch plates instead of dinner plates. Another is for grocery shopping: at the time, most stores were set up so all the meat, produce, dairy and unprocessed stuff was on the outside walls, so the trick was to do a circle around the outer aisles to get your food and avoid the rest of the aisles. (And of course, never go to a grocery store hungry!) I find most stores are still like that, but there are some exceptions now.