back to 'Weight Management' articles

Mastering Portion Sizes

How important is portion sizes in our daily diet and what size portioning size do you choose?

In the past decade the number of over weight adults have increased from 1 in 4 to 1 in 2, and children are following in our footsteps. While lack of exercise is a big part of this problem, nutritionists believe another major factor is poor portion control. A “Megameal” and “Super size” have taken hold in restaurants, take aways and even in convenience stores. Being put on the spot and asked if you wish to super size your meal for an extra 50c sounds like a good idea but does your body have the same opinion? By consuming as few as 100 extra calories daily – the amount of calories in 10 chips or an ounce of cheese (and who does not pick this amount of food while making the dinner or the healthy cheese salad sandwich) can add up to 10 lb weight gain a year.

What does this all mean? Do I need to count every calorie that touches my lips? No eating in moderation and we all know what’s healthy and what’s not so choose wisely to stay healthy and successfully manage your weight.

Remember in order to burn 1 lb of body fat you eat 3,500 calories less than you body needs or burn off these calories.

What portion size is the correct portion size?

Food                                        Visual cue                     kcal per serving

Cereal                                      Baseball                                  80

Rice/ Pasta                              Ice cream scoop                    80

3oz cooked lean meat           Deck of cards                        110

Salad dressing/ Mayo               Matchbox                              45

How hard is it to burn off excess calories? Based on 30 mins of exercise of the following:

Exercise                                   Amt of calories burned

Jog (8 min mile)                                 492

Swim                                                    372

Cycle                                                   400

Tennis                                                  258

Golf                                                      201

Therefore managing portion size and exercise is the best way of keeping you body and your mind healthy and happy!