To lose weight, maintain health and strengthen your immune system, you need to eat right. A balanced, nutritious diet will help avoid many health and appearance problems.
However, you need to pay attention not only to the composition of the menu, combinations of products, but also to the serving size.
To start eating right and getting rid of excess weight, you need to learn how to determine the amount of food at one time.
This can be done even without a kitchen scale, visually.
This skill will help you control the amount of food so as not to overeat, keep your figure slim and your health strong.
How to determine portion size by eye?
If you find yourself in a situation where the weight of the product is simply unknown, then you should use the rule of palms or the rule of the plate. Let's start with the second one - the rules of the plate.
Some people consider following this rule to be a diet, although nutritionists do not want to recognize it as such, being skeptical. The essence of this rule is that at each meal you give yourself ¼ protein food, ¼ grains and ½ vegetables (except potatoes).
The plate itself should be no more than 24 centimeters, and your meal should not go beyond the boundaries of this plate. That is, no piece of bread or separately placed food items are allowed. If you follow this ratio of foods on your plate, you will get enough of all nutritional components and satisfy your hunger.
Not everyone who loses weight copes with understanding the plate rule. Many cannot adequately distribute food on it and do not notice how they overeat. For such poor souls, there is another option - the rule of the hand or palms.
Amount and portions of food with proper nutrition in grams
Download the 1200 calorie per day weight loss diet and lose 2-3 kg. As a gift, bonuses: dietary recommendations, a diary of breakdowns, a checklist “How to switch to proper nutrition.”
DOWNLOAD DIET The number of meals should be 3-5 per day . In this case, you need to give up fatty, fried, smoked foods, and give preference to raw vegetables, lean meat, and fruits. The intervals between meals should be 2-3 hours.
Approximate portions of food with proper nutrition in grams
- For breakfast, porridge with milk and honey, a few pieces of cheese, and some bread (about 250 grams) are perfect. See: PP breakfast options.
- Repeat the second breakfast after a couple of hours and eat an omelette with vegetables (approximately 130-150 grams).
- For lunch, first - low-fat soup with bone broth (200 grams), second - lazy cabbage rolls, vegetable salad (150 grams).
- Afternoon snack – 100 grams of cottage cheese with dried fruits and sour cream.
- Dinner: stewed vegetables (150 grams) with a poultry or fish cutlet (100 grams).
- 2 hours before bedtime, you are allowed to drink a glass of kefir (200 ml).
By following a balanced diet and eating portions with proper nutrition, you will find inner lightness. The extra pounds will disappear forever.
Author of the site and articles: Natalya Stepanova, nutritionist-psychologist, nutrition and weight management consultant. More about me.
Why is it important to observe portion sizes?
The main condition for losing weight is following the rules of the established regime and serving size with proper nutrition. When the stomach is empty, it begins to produce the hunger hormone, which leads to overeating. And as a result of overeating, the stomach begins to stretch and leads to extra pounds. When switching to the correct portions for weight loss, the size of the stomach decreases , thanks to which it is possible to remove the feeling of hunger even with a glass of water. By following this technique, you can lose up to two kilograms in the first week.
It is believed that the ideal volume of food served at one time is equal to the size of your fist.
What to remember
So, what important things did we learn today:
- You don't need a scale to determine your portion size correctly.
- Use the palm and fist method - these “gadgets” are always with you and will never let you down
- At the same time, do not forget about the quality of food.
Well, that's all I have for today. See you again in blog articles!
The main reason for breaking any diet is the feeling of hunger. Even such tricks as plenty of water throughout the day and large portions of extremely low-calorie vegetables cannot save those losing weight. But even if you have enough willpower and patience to withstand the most strict diet or hunger, you will have to upset you and tell you about such a problem as a chemical-hormonal background. Fractional meals for weight loss have become a real bestseller recently. People who cannot endure long and strict diets, or who are constantly hungry, simply clutch at fractional meals like a drowning man at a straw. Not surprising, because this is a very convenient and effective nutrition system.
The longer you go without food, the faster your blood glucose levels begin to rise, the concentration of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, rises, and along with them, the hormone cortisol, the stress hormone, rises. The higher the level of ghrelin, the more unbearable hunger. Sometimes it is accompanied not just by a desire to eat, but by a faint state and a severe loss of strength. Cortisol changes metabolic principles and interferes with the consumption of fat reserves. It is because of the work of this team of hormones that people face the problem of stagnant weight loss on low-calorie diets.
Fractional meals for weight loss are a great way to get rid of this problem. When you reduce your portion sizes but increase the number of meals you eat, you begin to lose weight because your body doesn't have time to get hungry.
This approach to nutrition helps normalize weight quite quickly. It all depends on the initial number of kilograms, the effect will be positive in any case. The main thing is to follow all nutritional rules and control portion sizes.
During the day you have three serious, hearty meals of 300-400 kcal each and 2-3 intermediate meals of 200-250 kcal each. The average person needs no more than 2000 kcal per day. Portion sizes and caloric content depend on lifestyle. If you play sports and walk a lot during the day, then your diet may be higher in calories than that of a person who leads a sedentary lifestyle and practically does not remember about training. You can calculate your calorie intake for the day in just a couple of seconds using our calculator.
When you decide to switch to fractional meals, you will have to forget about a three-course lunch, as our grandmothers loved to cook (first course, main course and compote, and sometimes dessert). Such an abundance of food will never lead to weight loss and will certainly not have a beneficial effect on your health. You can eat a salad or a piece of meat after the soup, but in this case, both servings should be 2 times smaller so that their size does not exceed the size of your stomach.
How much to put on a plate
It is always important to monitor the amount of food consumed, including when eating properly. Research shows that people do not always adequately estimate the amount of food they eat.
And, by the way, you can find out if you are overeating by performing a simple test, which I mention in the article “Why we overeat.”
There are several ways to measure a portion.
Using scales, spoons and glasses, as well as using the palm of your hand. The last one is the most popular and simplest. But not always applicable - for example, you wouldn’t measure soup with your palms, would you?
Pharmacy-like precision
Scales - this is probably the most expected method - will show the weight literally in grams. And the longest and most inconvenient.
But, if you want mathematical accuracy, then it may be useful to you, especially at first. True, you will have to outweigh everything you cook.
Kitchen scales should always be on hand. However, having filled your hand, as they say, after a while you yourself will be able to determine the required amount by eye.
It couldn't be simpler
The easiest way is to adhere to the “fist rule” - approximately this (one or two fists, everything is individual here) is the volume of our stomach on an empty stomach, if it is not distended.
Hence the need to put so much food in it so as not to stretch it. At the same time, of course, you shouldn’t deceive yourself, and after eating “one fist”, add another one to the plate.
Let me remind you that the easiest way not to overeat is to reduce the plate, and at the same time the spoon. A study conducted by Cornell University in the USA among nutrition experts confirms that even nutritionists can make mistakes about portion sizes. A group of experts were given plates and spoons of different sizes and asked to help themselves to ice cream. As a result, those who had larger plates or spoons unknowingly put in 31% and 14% more ice cream, respectively, than those who had smaller cutlery.
We look at the palm
This method is more complex, but more accurate compared to the previous one. And in fact, it’s very simple: you look at your palm and you know exactly what portion should be of normal size.
Just let's make it clear that all weight measures here are taken without a slide. Well, now the main thing to remember is that a portion of food at one time is:
The protein product is the size of the palm of your hand. This is approximately 100 grams of meat (chicken or fish)
Complex carbohydrates – palm or fist
Potatoes, rice – front part of the fist (approximately 75-100g)
Vegetables (salads) – two palms folded together
Fruit – clenched fist (about 200g)
Fats – one phalanx of the thumb
Greens - do not confuse them with vegetables. All kinds of salads, dill, parsley and the like can be eaten without restrictions.
The palm and fingers are also suitable as “weight measures”. For example:
A teaspoon (corresponds to the size of your thumbnail) is 5 grams (for example, this is the amount of vegetable oil per day)
A tablespoon is already equal to 10 grams
A handful is equivalent to two tablespoons of liquid (so we found something to measure our soup with). In general, a serving of soup, as nutritionists say, is 150-200g, or a regular glass.
On the advice of nutritionists
Nutritionists believe that to lose weight, a person needs to reduce the calorie content of their daily food by about 500 kcal.
And then his diet will be equal to:
two protein palms and one carbohydrate palm
three fists of fruits and vegetables
one phalanx of the thumb fat
Advice: as for me, it is not at all convenient to measure using the palm of your hand - it is better to mentally divide the plate into 4 parts. Give a quarter to proteins, the other quarter to grains. And set aside half for vegetables and salads. Visual perception, by the way, is one of the effective ways to reduce food consumption. Often we don’t even notice how we eat a bag of chips or cookies, “carrying” one thing after another.
Determining the correct amount of food is described quickly, simply and clearly in this video:
This is mathematics, dear friends. What do you think about this? Do you use any of your own methods to determine portion size?
Secrets for learning to eat small portions
When you're just getting used to small portions, choose small plates. On them, any portion of food, even 50 grams, will look much larger. Turn on the esthete and beautifully lay out the food on the plate. There is no need to throw everything in a heap and into one point. Distribute the food on the plate so that it fills its entire surface.
Before eating, it is useful to drink a glass of regular (not carbonated!) water - it will take up part of the volume of the stomach and help deceive the feeling of hunger. You need to drink at least 1.5 liters per day, and in hot weather 2 liters of water, in addition to coffee, tea, and juices.
The duration of the meal should be at least 20 minutes. Chew your food thoroughly and enjoy the process of eating your healthy snack. The feeling of fullness comes only after 20 minutes, take your time!
Eat only at home or take your homemade food with you. If you're feeling really hungry and don't have a homemade snack on hand, buy only healthy foods at the store, such as fruit or low-fat dairy products. Knowing how to learn to eat in small portions, always have an apple or a handful of dried fruits or nuts with you for a snack. Surprisingly, 1-2 raisins, chewed very carefully and slowly, not only eliminate the feeling of hunger, but also create a feeling of true gastronomic pleasure.
Create masterpieces on your plate. A portion of cottage cheese looks sad, sprinkle it with cinnamon, flax seeds, and place the apple cut into slices on the sides, and do not throw it in a mound next to it. Eat only in the kitchen without TV, computer, telephone or other noise. Distracted by extraneous disturbances, you won’t notice how your food disappears from your plate, and your stomach still won’t feel full.
Now you have a complete understanding of what portion should be on a fractional diet and how to determine the serving size on a fractional diet if you don’t have a scale at hand. We wish you the best results!
It's no secret that the basis of a beautiful, slender figure lies in the correct approach to diet and choosing the right portion size. Eating balanced food brings the body back to normal over time and the extra pounds disappear. It is important to learn how to determine the required serving size to avoid overeating.
What should be the portion of food when losing weight?
Servings of food with proper nutrition in grams should not exceed 350 grams at a time .
The serving size for weight loss is up to 70% of the main diet, which is equal to 200-250 grams, while the amount of food should increase by 2-3 meals. That is, you should eat fractionally. This technique is the most favorable for weight loss. The system of this method allows you to cleanse the body, activate the production of enzymes, and improve metabolism. A person practically does not feel hunger due to frequent meals.
