Food portions in a “super-size” society are hard for the majority of Americans to resist.Don’t be a victim of portion distortion. We eat more and move less on average. The epidemic of that combination of events has made our top 5 preventable diseases exploded. Knowing how much food(energy) to put in your body is 70% of your success with reaching your goals of body fat loss or general health.
Do you know basic food portion knowledge? If not use the following images to help determine portion size for general types of food.
1 cup of cereal = a fist
1/2 cup of cooked rice, pasta, or potato = 1/2 baseball
1 baked potato = a fist
1 medium fruit = a baseball
1/2 cup of fresh fruit = 1/2 baseball
1 1/2 ounces of low-fat or fat-free cheese = 4 stacked dice
1/2 cup of ice cream = 1/2 baseball
2 tablespoons of peanut butter = a ping-pong ball
You should journal your food and measure it for two weeks to get an idea of how many calories you are actually consuming. After you learn that, you will be better able at knowing how much energy is in the food you are eating, therefore enabling you to be more consistent with your calorie consumption.
You can look up the foods you eat and how many calories they are at http://nutritiondata.self.com/ check it out!
Most of us eat more than we need ant any one meal, which adds up to more calories that get stored as fat. I am going to give you a few tips that will help you reduce your cravings to help control your portion sizes.
Don’t skip meals and snacks!! Skipping meals or snacks makes you more hungry and more likely to eat too much when you do eat. It can also slow your metabolism. You should try to eat or snack every 3-4 hours.
Eat slowly.It takes about 15-20 minutes to get the message to your brain that your stomach has been satisfied. It’s amazing how much food we can eat in 5 minutes. Try to chew your food slowly and enjoy it. Put down your utensil between bites. Extending your meal to 15 -20 minutes will more likely insure that you will not eat more than your body needs.
Drink a 8-16oz glass of water before you eat. Getting in the habit of drinking a glass of water before your meals can be a good habit to make sure you are not eating out of being thirsty.
Make sure that your meals and snack have a proper balance of Carbohydrates , protein , and fat to better satiate your hunger for a longer period of time.
Well I hope this information takes out some of the guess-work to understand food portions. If you would like a food plan with and exercise regimen contact me at
Thank your for your time and energy…Be well
Jaime Hernandez