Portion Control

Watch your portion sizes at meal times

Portion sizes of food have gotten bigger and bigger. Fast food restaurants serve super-sized meals for just a few cents extra, and regular sit-down restaurants serve larger portions than necessary for a healthy balanced meal. These large portions can sneak into your home too, when you grab a bag of potato chips and eat the whole thing, or down a 600ml bottle of soft drink.

Portion sizes can be estimated by using objects as a point of reference. One way of determining portion size is to compare hand size. For example a healthy serving of protein should not be larger than a palm size piece of meat. Carbohydrate servings such as pasta can be measured by fistfuls. A healthy serving of pasta should be one fistful.

The problem with this portion distortion is the tendency to eat whatever is in front of you, and overeating may lead to gaining unwanted pounds. Even healthy foods contribute too many calories when you eat too much of them.

Portion Control Tips

First you need to become familiar with serving sizes for the foods you eat every day. Packaged foods always show the serving size information on the nutrition fact labels, usually in grams or ounces. Use an inexpensive kitchen scale, measuring cups and measuring spoons to measure your portions of these foods at home until you feel comfortable estimating serving sizes without them.

Want to cut calories? Here are a few tips for controlling your portion sizes.

If you eat at a restaurant, ask for a container and take half of your meal home, or split your meal with your dining partner.

If you like to snack while watching TV, measure out one serving of your snack - don't take a whole bag of chips with you into your TV room.

Serve dinner by the plate, rather than family style (serving dishes on the table), you'll be less tempted to load up on second servings if they're not right in front of you.

Start your meal with a clear soup or green salad to ease your hunger a bit so that you aren't as likely to over eat.

If cutting calories leaves you feeling hungry, add extra servings of nutrient-dense vegetables like carrots, green beans and celery. While one-half cup of rice or pasta has about 100 calories, one-half cup of green beans has only 14 calories.

Healthy Diet Recipes

Healthy Breakfast Recipes	Healthy Lunch Recipes	Healthy Dinner Recipes	Healthy Snack Recipes

 

Further Nutrition Reading:

• Healthy Eating Tips

• Top 10 Nutrition Myths

• Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI)

• Fats and Cholesterol

• Weight Watchers Diet to losing weight.

 

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