Using your body as a food portioning aid.
Imagine you’re out for the day running errands. A friend calls and asks if you want to meet him or her for lunch while you’re out. You respond and say that you will, but upon arriving at your destination you have a terrifying realization: you haven’t brought any of your nutrition learning tools or your Healthy To-Go Pack with you!
This is where a lot of mistakes are made. It’s easy to make excuses for eating out of control portions simply because you don’t have the tools you need to succeed. But there’s also another way of measuring your food portions to ensure that you are getting the vital nutrients you need, without over-indulging. All you need is your own two hands and you can have relatively accurate food measurements in minutes!
Body/Food Measurement Equivalents
A fist or cupped hand = 1 cup
- 1 serving of raw, leafy green veggies
- Cut in half for one serving of cereal, cooked pasta or rice, or chopped veggies and fruits
A palm = 3 oz.
- One serving of lean meat (poultry, fish, shellfish, beef); make sure to get two palms-worth per day!
A thumb = 1 oz.
- One serving of low fat cheese
A thumb tip = 1 tsp
- Limit yourself to three thumb tips of high fat foods, like peanut butter or mayo, per day
A handful = 1 – 2 oz of snack food
- 1 serving of nuts
- Multipy by two for a serving of pretzels
Find a helpful infographic here. There’s also a multitude of resources at your disposal, like living tools and learning tools, at Precise Proportions website.
For more information on Precise Proportions and to access the resources available to you, please visit www.preciseproportions.com or call 866-591-DIET today.