Weight loss initiative cannot be confined to your choice of healthy food alone. Enough importance should be attached to the quantity and the interval at which you consume. This requires a little peep on understanding the difference between food portion and serving size.
A “portion” refers to the quantity that you choose to eat at a given point of time – be it in your house, restaurant or any other gathering, and from even packaged foods. A “serving” size on the other hand lists the Nutrition Facts indicating the calories and nutrients contained in specific amounts on a food item. Even if the portion size and serving size match, which they at times – always remember that serving size is never the recommended amount of food consumption. It just is a ready reckoner of the nutrients and caloric content of a food product.
This gives rise to a question as to how would one know if their portion size is more than their required consumption? Let us understand this with an example. Observe the nutrition facts of a particular food item say Macroni and Cheese that is printed on the label of the food product. Though the printed information refers to 1 cup, the package in fact has 2 cups of this food item. Now if you consume the entire package, you double the calorie consumption and the other nutrients and fat contents of this food item. Thus enhancing your awareness a bit and by just being a little observant, you can gain adequate insight on your food consumption and take appropriate measures to keep your weight under control. For this always make it a point to read the ‘servings per container’ listed under the Nutritional Facts of any given food item.
A quick guideline on understanding serving sizes:
- One cup of cereal or 1 baked potato is equal to the quantity that can be contained in your fist.
- Half cup of cooked rice, pasta, potato or half cup of fresh fruit is equal to the half size of a baseball.
- One medium sized fruit is equivalent to one baseball.
- Half a cup of ice cream is again equivalent to half sized baseball.
- 1 ½ ounce of low- or fat-free cheese is same the size of 4 stacked dices.
- 2 tablespoon of peanut butter would equal a ping-pong ball.
These are some quick cues to relate to your quantity of food consumption. Paying attention to these can largely help you in keeping your body weight under control.
For more information on food portion and food serving, visit http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/just_enough.htm