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To reduce your calories and lose weight, reduce the size of
your portions!
How much do you eat?
A great example of our overeating: Pour out
your usual portion of pasta and measure it! Next, compare it to the recommended portion size on the package label. Chances are, you're eating two, three, four
or more times the amount on the label. The portion size that you are used to eating may be equal to two or three standard
servings! To see how many servings a package has, check the “servings per
container” listed on its Nutrition Facts.
Tip: Watch the amount of spaghetti or pasta that you are eating. Count your noodles! Yes, slow down
and enjoy your pasta while mentally counting the noodles. A single serving of
noodles is equivalent to about 32 full strands of spaghetti and/or one
carbohydrate exchange for diabetics.
Practice restraint in restaurants as well. An appetizer makes a great meal and is plenty
of food for one sitting.
Please read
How To Eat Out On A Diet or
How To Survive Without Blowing Your Diet!
Spaghetti Dinner Example:
Information from Center for
Nutrition Policy and Promotion, United States Department of Agriculture
Suppose you had dinner at an Italian restaurant last night. You ordered
spaghetti with meatballs. While you were waiting for your order, you ate 2
slices of garlic bread. How can you tell if this dinner is too much food for
you? You need to estimate how much you ate, and then compare that to Food Guide
Pyramid recommendations.
Think about your plateful of spaghetti and meatballs. Estimate the amounts of
spaghetti, sauce, and meat. You may decide, for example, that the spaghetti
portion was about 2 cups, the tomato sauce looked like about 1 cup, and the
meatballs were about 6 ounces. With the 2 slices of garlic bread, you now have
an idea about how much you ate for dinner. According to the Pyramid, your
portions equal the following number of servings:
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Food |
Your Portion |
One Pyramid Serving |
# of Pyramid Servings You Ate |
|
Spaghetti |
2 cups |
1/2 cup |
4 |
|
Garlic Bread |
2 slices |
1 slice |
2 |
|
Tomato Sauce |
1 cup |
1/2 cup |
2 |
|
Meatballs |
6 oz |
2-3 oz |
2-3 |
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Take Control of your Eating
How To Control Portion Sizes - Portion Control Secrets
It’s not always what you eat, but how much you eat - It’s the size of
your servings that really counts!
Most of us tend to underestimate the amount of food we
eat and tend to overestimate the recommended portion
sizes for many foods. Almost everyone underestimates the amount of calories they
consume, and people who weigh more do so to a greater degree.
Portion: A “portion” is how much food you choose
to eat at one time (breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack), whether in a restaurant, from a package, or in your own
kitchen. Portions can be bigger or smaller than the recommended food servings. There is no standard
portion size and no single right or wrong portion size.
Serving: A “serving” size is the amount of
food listed (and recommended) on a product’s Nutrition
Facts (panel of packaged food) or the amount of food
recommended in the Food Guide Pyramid and the Dietary
Guidelines* for Americans. Sometimes, the portion size
and serving size match; sometimes they do not. A serving is a standard amount
used to help give advice about how much to eat, or to
identify how many calories and nutrients are in a food.
*The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Nutrition Facts tells you how many calories and how much fat,
carbohydrate, sodium, and other nutrients are
available in one serving of food. Most packaged
foods contain more than a single serving.
Check out how to read food labels -
Food Labels 101.
In this world of super-sizing everything, it is hard to avoid the huge
portions of food tempting us at all-you-can-eat buffets,
extra-large hamburgers, jumbo lattes in coffee chains, and the extra-large
“single servings” of snack foods such as chips and candy
bars. Even bagels have become super-sized, which gives what
should be a reasonably healthful breakfast item a high
calorie count. More people now eat away from home, giving
them less control over the amount of food on their
plates. Check out
How To Eat Out On A Diet
or How To Survive Without Blowing Your Diet!
How To Control Portion Sizes:
Eating smaller portions of food is one of the easiest
ways to cut back on calories, but it can also be one of
the most challenging, with the current trend of
super-sizing. How do you know a reasonable portion of food when you
see it? Visualize the objects mentioned below when
eating out, planning a meal, or grabbing a snack.
Use you hand as a guide - Generally, a serving size is what can fit into the palm of an individual's hand.
Food Pyramid Guide:
How many servings do you need each day to maintain your weight?
Information from
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
United States Department of Agriculture
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What counts as a serving?
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Children (ages 2 to 6), women, some older adult
(1,600 calories)
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Older children, teen girls, active women, most men
(2,200 calories)
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Teen boys and active men
(2,800 calories)
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Grains Group (Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta)
especially whole grain
1 slice of bread
About 1 cup (1 ounce) of ready-to-eat cereal
½ cup of cooked cereal, rice, or pasta
6 whole wheat crackers
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6
servings |
9
servings |
11
servings |
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Vegetable Group
1 cup of raw leafy vegetables
½ cup of other vegetables (corn, peas, sweet
potatoes), cooked or raw
¾ cup of vegetable juice
1 small (3 oz) baked potato
|
3
servings |
4
servings |
5 servings |
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Fruit Group
1 medium apple, banana, orange, pear
½ cup of chopped, cooked, or canned fruit
¾ cup of fruit juice
1 cup mixed berries, cherries or cubed
cantaloupe
|
2
servings |
3
servings |
4 servings |
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Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese Group - preferably fat free or low fat
1 cup of milk** or yogurt
2 ounces of natural cheese (such as Cheddar)
2 ounces of processed cheese (such as American)
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2 or 3* servings |
2 or 3* servings |
2 or 3* servings |
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Meat and Beans Group (Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts) preferably lean or low fat
2-3 ounces of cooked lean meat, poultry, or fish
These count as 1 ounce of meat:
½ cup of cooked dry beans (lima, kidney,
black. split beans, lentils) or tofu
2 ½ ounce soy burger
1 egg
2 tablespoons of peanut butter
1/3 cup of nuts
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2
servings, for a total of 5 ounces |
2 servings, for a total of 6 ounces |
2 servings, for a total of 7 ounces
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* Older children and teens ages 9 to 18 years
and adults over age 50 need 3 servings daily,
others need 2 servings daily.
** This includes lactose-free and
lactose-reduced milk products. Soy-based
beverages with added calcium are an option for
those who prefer a non-dairy source of calcium.
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How many servings do you need to lose weight?
To reduce your calories and lose
weight, reduce the size of the recommended daily portion servings.
Any diet that does not rely on foods from the above Food Pyramid is nutritionally unbalanced.
The Dietary Guidelines describe a healthy diet as
one that:
Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and
fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
Is low in saturated fats, trans fats,
cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.
Pay less attention to
specific caloric intake than to portion size and nutritional completeness.
Each of these food groups provide some, but not all, of the nutrients you need. No
one food group is more important than another- for good
health you need them all. Go easy on fats, oils, and
sweets, the foods higher in fat, sugar and calories.
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