Portion Size Guide

If I had to make a list of the top ten ways I lie to myself, portion size would be near the top. And while I do enjoy lying about how many of portions of frozen yogurt are in my bowl, if I, or you, ever want to get to our ideal weights, we're going to have to come to terms with portion sizes.

The two most popular ways to measure portions in the popular media are 1) by comparing portion sizes to common items and b) comparing portion sizes to your own hand. Of the two, I vastly prefer using hands. For one thing, I have my hands with me at all times, where I do not commonly carry around a hockey puck (I don't even own one) or a cassette tape (ohmigod! how archaic!), and even though it is with me most of the time, I would find it very depressing to have to take out my checkbook to compare it to a portion of fish.

So I'm npt going to use the "common objects" measurement guide. I'm going to use the hand guide. I like the hands as measurement for another reason -- they are customized to my body size. This is the thing about many diets with strict portion size ratings... they are feeding the same amount of food to a five foot three woman as they are to a six foot three man. The woman may be just well enough fed to get through, but the man may get to 7pm at night and decide he's had enough of cottage cheese and its time for a hamburger. I would, and I'm just six feet tall.

Returning to the subject, the hand measurement obviously overcomes this problem because you are using your own hands, and hand size generally follows body size, so both the small woman and the big man will be eating the same amount per body mass.

And now, without further ado, is the chart for portion sizes according to hand sizes:

one serving of vegetables

enough to cover your palm

one serving of fat

one thumb-pad (the last section of your thumb; the part that makes a thumb-print)

one serving of fruit or meat or grains

one fist

Now that you know what the real serving sizes are, the next time you go to a restaurant you may be in for a shock. Never noticed that most restaurants give us two to three times the portion sizes, eh? And the fact is, if they did not give us 2-3 times the portion sizes, we would be complaining about how they were giving out stingy portions.

One solution to having three meals on your plate is to ask for a to go container when you order. Over time you will get used to the arched eyebrows that result from doing this, but please keep in mind, as you put half of your dinner into the container, that many of the people giving you those suspicious looks from the other tables are thinking "wow, I wish I had done that. I'm going to do that next time."

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