If you have a craving for grease with every meal or the drive-thru attendant knows your order, no matter how much you work out you still won’t reach your goals.
Even if you hit the gym twice a day, eating healthy is still an important and integral part of becoming a healthier version of you.
The easiest way to control the quality of what goes into your body is to properly portion your meal. Taking into account how many scoops of sides versus your main dish can not only help curb your appetite, but keep your body running as efficiently as possible.
Let’s start with the healthy stuff – fruits and vegetables.
The childhood refrain, “Don’t forget to eat your fruits and vegetables,” has long been drilled into our heads. We understand that its recommended to eat three to five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, but what’s a serving size? Is it a glass of juice? An orange? An entire cucumber?
Officially, according to the United States Dept. of Agriculture, a single serving of a fruit or vegetable is the equivalent of half a cup. Veggies of the leafier persuasion, such as lettuce or spinach, require an entire cup of green goodness to qualify as a serving.
Typical serving sizes for fruit: one banana, six strawberries, two plums, fifteen grapes, one apple, one peach, 1/2 cup of orange or other fruit juice.
Typical serving sizes for vegetables: five broccoli florets, ten baby carrots, one Roma tomato, 3/4 cup tomato juice, 3/4 cup vegetable juice, half of a baked sweet potato, one ear of corn, four slices of an onion.
Fruits and vegetables should take up approximately half of your meal’s plate, with vegetables covering slightly more space than the fruit.
That covers the healthy stuff.
Grains, a source of fiber in your diet, should take up about a quarter of your meal’s plate. People should eat between six to 11 servings of grain each day, but don’t let the nutritional facts on the wrapper fool you. According to livestrong.com, a regular size bagel is actually equivalent to four grain servings.
With that in mind, a serving size of grains is smaller than you expect. The general rule is approximately one ounce of grains is equal to one serving.
Typical serving sizes for grains: 1/2 cup pasta, 1/2 cup rice, slice of bread, cup of cereal (plain), half an English muffin, one corn tortilla.
We also learned that protein can help curb your hunger, thanks to Dr. David Bloom from Personalcare Physicians.
Your meal’s protein serving should take up the remaining quarter of your plate. It’s recommended that you have between four and eight ounces of protein each day or two to three servings.
Servings sizes for protein are a little more difficult to calculate unless you always have a scale handy. For reference, three ounces of chicken, fish or other meat is about the size of a deck of playing cards, two tablespoons of peanut butter is the same as one golf ball, and half a cup of beans is about half of a baseball. ClevelandClinic.org has a comprehensive list of protein servings, broken down by the level of fat for both meat and meat substitutes. Check it out here.
Typical serving sizes for protein: 3 oz. of meat, 2 Tbsp. of peanut butter, one egg, 1/2 cup beans, 1/2 cup tofu.
Most people should have between two to three cups of dairy each day. Whether you add cheese to your meal or pour yourself a tall glass of milk, dairy is easy to add into your daily intake. If you have dairy allergy, typical substitutes include vegetarian or vegan cheese, as well as soy, almond or rice milk.
Typical serving sizes for dairy: one cup milk, one cup yogurt, two cups cottage cheese, 1/2 cup ricotta cheese, 1/3 cup shredded cheese, 1 1/2 cups ice cream.
And remember, fats and sugars in moderation!
