(by Angela Berrill, New Zealand Registered Dietitian and Jenny Craig Weight Management Expert)
Portion sizes - how much, is too much?
When it comes to what you eat, size really does matter and yes, you can have too much of a good thing. But what is too much and how much should you be eating? With so many conflicting messages out there, it can sometimes be hard to know who you should be listening to. According to Jenny Craig's Weight Management Expert, Angela Berrill, the answer lies all in your hands.
"When we serve up more food, we tend to eat more. To avoid overeating, pay careful attention to your hands."
Vegetables - You should aim to have 2 cupped-hands of vegetables on your dinner plate. Another way to look at this is to have ½ your dinner plate filled with vegetables.
Carbohydrate - a clenched fist is the amount of carbohydrate you should have on your dinner plate. Carbohydrates include starchy vegetables (ego potato, kumara, taro and yams), pasta, rice or bread. This means when it comes to your dinner plate, carbohydrates should only make up ¼ of the plate - not ¾'s of a plate as we may sometimes do with pasta and rice based meals!
Meat - The palm of your hand excluding fingers and the thickness of your hand should equal the portion of red meat on your dinner plate. The portion for chicken and fish is the size of your whole hand.
Tips to help keep your portions in check:
- Use a smaller dinner plate. The bigger the dinner plate, the more likely we are to fill it up and then eat everything on it!
- Fill up your plate with vegetables first. Make sure you fill ½ the plate.
- Where you can, try buying foods in pre-determined portions/serves. For example a 150g pottle of yoghurt, a small bag of rice crackers or a piece of fruit, which fits into the palm of your hand, is one serve.
- Read food labels and stick to the recommended serve sizes. For example, if your box of cereal says it contains 20 serves, it should in theory last you about 3 weeks. If you run out of cereal before this either you are eating too much or someone else is raiding your cereal!
- If buying foods in bulk, separate them into smaller bags or containers when you get home.
