Portion Patrol and Control

Portion Control - It's Quality, not Quantity...

Wind your clock back 10 or 15 years… do you remember what food portions used to look like? A standard bottle of soft drink was not 600ml like it is today, muffins used to be cup-cake size and now they are mini meal size. And did you know that there are 9 regular biscuits in a large cookie! Even bread slices are getting bigger!

As a nation we have become really good at eating more and moving less. Sure, some of our food choices have changed but does the answer to our obesity epidemic lye in the quantity of our food not the quality?

You can definitely still have too much of a good thing. Take fruit for example, the other day I was buying apples and I struggled to find one that would comfortably fit in my hand. Most of them were almost double the size – the equivalent to eating two apples! Even though apples are good for you, in excess isn’t they aren’t.

Dinner is where many New Zealanders tend to over eat. If you’re wondering how much food is the right amount for you, here is a trick – it’s all to do with the size of your hands.

• Your carbohydrate portion (potato/kumara/rice or pasta) should be no bigger than the size of your clenched fist. For most people, that’s around 1 cup cooked.
• Your protein serving (meat/chicken/fish or alternative) should be no bigger than the size of the palm of your hand (with out your fingers and your thumb!) and about the same thickness. 
• With 1/3-1/2 plate being vegetables or salad. The New Zealand dinner plate definitely doesn’t look like this!

Other tricks for getting your portions right:

• Eat regularly throughout the day i.e. have a morning and afternoon snack. A lot of people fall into the trap of not eating enough during the morning, so by 5.00pm they are so ravenous they could eat the decorations off a Christmas tree!
• Eat foods that will fill you up like fruits, vegetables and foods with substantial whole grain content. These will keep you fuller for longer, so you are less likely to overeat.
• Ensure you have breakfast. People who don’t eat breakfast are more likely to overeat later on in the day.
• Drink adequate amounts of water – sometimes we think we’re hungry when in fact we’re just thirsty.
• Buy grated cheese – you’ll use less and can’t cut big chunks.
• Buy foods that are already pre-portioned into serves or divide them yourself into portions. For example, nuts are a great snack and packed full of nutrients. But a serving of nuts is only 1 tablespoon!
• Buy your meat to weight or check the weight to work out how many portions you should get out of it. Women should aim for a portion between 120-140g and males between 150-180g (raw weight).
• Never upsize when you eat out. Small servings are enough!
• If you’re having ice-cream, put it between two pink wafers or in a cone, instead of having a bowl because you can’t put 5 scoops in a cone!

By Kath Fouhy, BSc, PG DipDiet, NZRD - 22/05/07

Pulse Personal Training – It’s About Success - www.PulsePT.co.nz