Tips for Upgrading Your Diet #4

Eating for two? Let's talk about portion control. It isn't enough just to know WHAT to eat, but we need to know HOW MUCH to eat. A great guideline for portions is the Precision Nutrition hand guide system. This system uses your palm, your thumb, your fist and your cupped hand size as guidelines. This works well because it also accounts for variations in body size (larger people have larger hands....so appropriately more/less food is accounted for.)

Using this system, we use:

1) your palm (thickness included) to measure out protein servings (think chicken breast, scrambled eggs, greek yogurt, tofu etc)

2) your thumb as a measure for fat servings (almonds, peanut butter, butter, olive oil etc)

3) your cupped hand to measure carbohydrate dense foods (think potato, rice, corn, fruit etc)

4) your fist to measure portions of vegetables (think broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, cabbage....you get the idea)

Generally, the typical woman will have one serving of each of these at each meal. For the typical man, the portions increase to two servings of each hand portion per meal. Adaptations and changes can be made then depending on how you feel and the results you get.

Can't be simpler than that!