Portion Size by the Handful
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I think the key is consistency and the saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" might apply here. If measuring by your hand seems to work then by all means, we don't always have access to a food scale while out on the go.
Now my hand is bigger than my wife's hand so we would both have a very different view on what a palm size is worth of something. I'd have to do a few tests using actual measured and weighed portions of things before I'd be comfortable with that.0 -
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This seems like just another way for you to negate food scales. I get that for you they don't work, but using every chance you can to express how much you dislike them gets old after a while.
It's pretty funny, isn't it?
I don't see myself scooping up a palmful of cottage cheese any time soon.
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RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »
and olives0 -
kmsoucy457 wrote: »I have giant man hands (even though I'm a 5'3" woman!) so this wouldn't work for me. A food scale is a much better method for me anyway because I need a concrete number, it's too easy for me to lie to myself about how much I'm eating without the numbers in my face.
Same here: 5'3", giant hands. Alternately I have a good friend who at 5'8" has tiny-little-baby hands.
That being said I think that these guidelines are great for people starting at square 1 with nutritional education. Most of those people have no idea what a correct portion size is, and how calorie dense certain foods are/aren't. With few exceptions, everybody has hands, and no one leaves home without them. Are there intrinsic flaws? Yes. Is a using a scale better? Certainly.
Or, let's use another example. I'm 5' 1". My daughter is 5'6". Her hands are smaller than mine, and mine are small.
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I've always eyeballed my portion sizes. I've always tracked what I eat in some way. I've never really been overweight with a couple of exceptions / pregnancies.
Obviously, weighing with a food scale is more accurate. I've been fortunate enough in my lifetime to not need that level of accuracy.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »kmsoucy457 wrote: »I have giant man hands (even though I'm a 5'3" woman!) so this wouldn't work for me. A food scale is a much better method for me anyway because I need a concrete number, it's too easy for me to lie to myself about how much I'm eating without the numbers in my face.
Same here: 5'3", giant hands. Alternately I have a good friend who at 5'8" has tiny-little-baby hands.
That being said I think that these guidelines are great for people starting at square 1 with nutritional education. Most of those people have no idea what a correct portion size is, and how calorie dense certain foods are/aren't. With few exceptions, everybody has hands, and no one leaves home without them. Are there intrinsic flaws? Yes. Is a using a scale better? Certainly.
Or, let's use another example. I'm 5' 1". My daughter is 5'6". Her hands are smaller than mine, and mine are small.
Clearly she just needs less calories than you. Why else would her hands be that size.0 -
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Make sure they're not sugar free. Unless... you know... you *want* the "fun" that goes along with that...
Gummy worms for dessert. Nom nom nom.RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »
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mamapeach910 wrote: »This seems like just another way for you to negate food scales. I get that for you they don't work, but using every chance you can to express how much you dislike them gets old after a while.
It's pretty funny, isn't it?
I don't see myself scooping up a palmful of cottage cheese any time soon.
That's another one that does seem to quite fit. I can see taking a slice of cheese and saying, "yeah, that's close to the size of my thumb," but I don't see limiting myself to three thumbs worth of cottage cheese.0 -
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TimothyFish wrote: »Some people suggest using your hands to judge portion size. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/17/health-food-portion-control/2091865/)
Protein: palm of hand, without fingers and thumb
Starchy Carbs (potatoes, rice, pasta): fist
Fruit: rounded handful
Vegetables: two hand portion size
Fats (oils, mayonnaise, peanut butter): tip of thumb
Cheese: full thumb
Juice: cup should be about as high as the distance from thumb to forefinger
Because the size of the hand is relative to the body size, people who need more calories get more calories.
Have you found this method of portion control to be useful and how has it compared to other methods you have used?
Also, do you see a significant difference in the size of a fist and the size of a rounded handful?
This is so flawed it's not even funny. Hands along with eyeballs can be very deceiving.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »
three thumbs worth of cottage cheese.mamapeach910 wrote: »This seems like just another way for you to negate food scales. I get that for you they don't work, but using every chance you can to express how much you dislike them gets old after a while.
It's pretty funny, isn't it?
I don't see myself scooping up a palmful of cottage cheese any time soon.
Is that anything along the lines of 3 fingers of scotch?
If so...I'm in.
Otherwise...zzzzzz...another day, another ridiculous thread by the OP.0 -
The whole "hand portion" concept came out of public health agencies trying to find a easily related way to communicate some idea of portion control. They needed a method that didn't include equipment such as a kitchen scale, since their audience is likely not to have it. If you're talking to someone who has not even a beginning concept of food mass, or even volumetric measuring, the hand is probably the only benchmark you can use.
Many of the MFP users would want to progress beyond a very ham-handed (pun intended) method of measuring. Volumetric measurements are an improvement, but still inexact for very calorie dense foods like starches. With kitchen scales being very cheap (~$20 for a halfway decent one), it's a very small investment that pays big dividends for people who really want to get a handle on their intake.
Bottom line, if the hand method is working for you, that's fine. If you find yourself in the "I'm logging everything but I'm not losing" crowd, the best step you can take is to get more exact with your measurements and minimize the error.
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Scale at home, but I'll use the hand portion method when out and about so that I can keep up logging without becoming a neurotic shut-in. I make it a point to round up and be honest with myself about it, though.0
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I don't mean this in an insulting way, but-- I feel like this would be a good system for kids, to help them understand what a good portion size or meat or veggies is. Their hands are growing with them, so they would always have a decent approximation of what a serving is, and it's simple.
Many adults need to be more precise, particularly us short ladies who only have 1600-1700 maintenance. Not a lot lot of 'I have particularly large/small hands for my size' wiggle room there.0 -
harpsdesire wrote: »I don't mean this in an insulting way, but-- I feel like this would be a good system for kids, to help them understand what a good portion size or meat or veggies is. Their hands are growing with them, so they would always have a decent approximation of what a serving is, and it's simple.
Many adults need to be more precise, particularly us short ladies who only have 1600-1700 maintenance. Not a lot lot of 'I have particularly large/small hands for my size' wiggle room there.
Gosh, I don't know. Kids probably need a lot more food than the size of their hand. Especially preteen and teen boys. In my experience, their head might be closer to portion size than their hand.
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Nooooo!
I'm a tallish lady, 5'8" but I have giant man-hands. Most of it is finger, but yeah my hands are WAY bigger than the hands of many of my male friends.
It's just better that I don't use this at all!0 -
But how would you log food measured in this way? Or is the point to measure this way and you wouldn't have to log?
I have to weigh because, as my father always told me, my eyes are bigger than my belly.0 -
Sort of off topic, but sort of on topic - I always wanted to portion out a day's meals according to the food guide pyramid serving suggestions to see what the caloric total would be for my choices...0
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mamapeach910 wrote: »This seems like just another way for you to negate food scales. I get that for you they don't work, but using every chance you can to express how much you dislike them gets old after a while.
It's pretty funny, isn't it?
I don't see myself scooping up a palmful of cottage cheese any time soon.
Palmfuls of cottage cheese. Washing and reusing red cups. Swimwear as underwear. Frisbees as plates. Ah, to be 23 again.
On-topic: my hands are too small for this. My fingers are longer than my palms. Strangers have commented on my weird hands. I think this method could work quite well for someone else, but I'll stick to weighing.0 -
harpsdesire wrote: »I don't mean this in an insulting way, but-- I feel like this would be a good system for kids, to help them understand what a good portion size or meat or veggies is. Their hands are growing with them, so they would always have a decent approximation of what a serving is, and it's simple.
Many adults need to be more precise, particularly us short ladies who only have 1600-1700 maintenance. Not a lot lot of 'I have particularly large/small hands for my size' wiggle room there.
I see what @Need2Exerc1se is saying, but I wouldn't completely dismiss this as a way to at least give an example of portion sizes to kids. Perhaps because of the size difference in hands it would be better to use the other method: protein should be the size of a deck of cards, cheese the size of one dice, etc. Some people grow up never knowing what an actual portion size is.0 -
ncboiler89 wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »Some people suggest using your hands to judge portion size. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/17/health-food-portion-control/2091865/)
Protein: palm of hand, without fingers and thumb
Starchy Carbs (potatoes, rice, pasta): fist
Fruit: rounded handful
Vegetables: two hand portion size
Fats (oils, mayonnaise, peanut butter): tip of thumb
Cheese: full thumb
Juice: cup should be about as high as the distance from thumb to forefinger
Because the size of the hand is relative to the body size, people who need more calories get more calories.
Have you found this method of portion control to be useful and how has it compared to other methods you have used?
Also, do you see a significant difference in the size of a fist and the size of a rounded handful?
I don't have time to read. So the article is saying put the food in your hand then put your hand on the scale?
But how do you tare you hand?0 -
My very first job was in a mail room where my job was to weigh packages on the postage scale and put the correct amount of postage on them. After just two or three days of doing this repetitively, and with a few minor exceptions, I knew the weight. It was a temporary job and one of the secretaries reported me for not using the postage scale. The boss was nice and advised that I use the scale. I said that I could tell how much everything weighed. He gave me a chance and tested me, handing me different size and weight packages and I would tell him both the weight and the amount of postage, then weigh them and calculate the postage manually. This went on for about five minutes and he was amazed, because except for the ones that I said, "I would have to weigh that", I got every single one right.0
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atypicalsmith wrote: »My very first job was in a mail room where my job was to weigh packages on the postage scale and put the correct amount of postage on them. After just two or three days of doing this repetitively, and with a few minor exceptions, I knew the weight. It was a temporary job and one of the secretaries reported me for not using the postage scale. The boss was nice and advised that I use the scale. I said that I could tell how much everything weighed. He gave me a chance and tested me, handing me different size and weight packages and I would tell him both the weight and the amount of postage, then weigh them and calculate the postage manually. This went on for about five minutes and he was amazed, because except for the ones that I said, "I would have to weigh that", I got every single one right.
That is the reason I feel that can be the same for weighing foods. One day you will be able to tell a serving size.
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yopeeps025 wrote: »atypicalsmith wrote: »My very first job was in a mail room where my job was to weigh packages on the postage scale and put the correct amount of postage on them. After just two or three days of doing this repetitively, and with a few minor exceptions, I knew the weight. It was a temporary job and one of the secretaries reported me for not using the postage scale. The boss was nice and advised that I use the scale. I said that I could tell how much everything weighed. He gave me a chance and tested me, handing me different size and weight packages and I would tell him both the weight and the amount of postage, then weigh them and calculate the postage manually. This went on for about five minutes and he was amazed, because except for the ones that I said, "I would have to weigh that", I got every single one right.
That is the reason I feel that can be the same for weighing foods. One day you will be able to tell a serving size.
I wouldn't recommend it for cottage cheese or yogurt, though
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Wiseandcurious wrote: »
Agreed! Pathetic! I don't think I've ever only eaten a "dice" / "die" size portion of cheese. Was just using that as an example, really.0 -
Wiseandcurious wrote: »
Agreed! Pathetic! I don't think I've ever only eaten a "dice" / "die" size portion of cheese. Was just using that as an example, really.
One dice would two dies, right?
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