Food Diary Wednesday: Portion Control

Portion Distortion

An important rule of clean eating is get your portion sizes under control. Eating large portions of even the healthiest food can hinder your progress or even make you gain weight. Successful dieting is not about just eating healthy foods , it is also crucial to eat the right quantity of healthy food.

I recommend eating 5/6 small meals a day. Notice I said SMALL.

What is a portion?

• A portion of carbs is the size of your fist

• A portion of protein is the size of your palm

• A portion of vegetables is the size of your open hand.

Tips

Use smaller plates, bowls and glasses so you are less likely to supersize.

 

A great iphone app to use is MyFitnessPal-it is an online calorie counter. You enter your height, weight, gender and how much weight you want to lose and it calculates the amount of calories you are recommended each day. The app has every food and brand of food under the sun (over two million food entries in its database).

I am not a big fan of calorie counting but I find that this app guides you and teaches you about portions. Through charts and graphs, the app easily displays nutritional breakdowns, exercises habits and weight loss trends. For instance I learned that I was low in iron so I started adding more spinach to my diet. Overall, MyFitnessPal makes you more aware of your diet choices and portion sizes.

I have attached the below pictures for guidance of what the size of each meal of the day should look like.