Portion Size by the Handful
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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.0 -
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?
Interesting. I weigh everything but constantly test my eyeballing skills so this was food for thought.
It's worth to note that hand/fist size varies greatly with bone structure, pudginess, etc. For me a rounded handful is half a fist, for another it might indeed be equal to a fist.
ETA: very obese people can have tiny hands and I have had very slender friends with huge shovel-like hands so not true that it would give you an amount of calories related to your size either. Honestly I think it's just one of those methods government officials put in food guides in the hope that it would look easy enough to motivate people to use *some* kind of portion control.0 -
It's different because the "weigh and measure everything" response is almost always given to someone who, inexplicably to him, isn't losing weight despite "knowing" how much he's eating.
Yeah but how is that different than constantly repeating "Weigh and measure EVERYTHING or you will die (but relax, it's just one day, enjoy that birthday cake at the office that you can't accurately log and just guess if you go out to eat some place that doesn't have nutritional info)?"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.
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
It's different because the "weigh and measure everything" response is almost always given to someone who, inexplicably to him, isn't losing weight despite "knowing" how much he's eating.
Yeah but how is that different than constantly repeating "Weigh and measure EVERYTHING or you will die (but relax, it's just one day, enjoy that birthday cake at the office that you can't accurately log and just guess if you go out to eat some place that doesn't have nutritional info)?"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.
ETA usually person does not use a food scale either.
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
It's different because the "weigh and measure everything" response is almost always given to someone who, inexplicably to him, isn't losing weight despite "knowing" how much he's eating.
Yeah but how is that different than constantly repeating "Weigh and measure EVERYTHING or you will die (but relax, it's just one day, enjoy that birthday cake at the office that you can't accurately log and just guess if you go out to eat some place that doesn't have nutritional info)?"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.
"almost" being the key word there. I've gotten that multiple times, yet I have never said I'm not losing weight. I've even got "How can you know you're at a deficit if you don't weigh your food?" more than once.0 -
It's pretty much the method I use when eating out at friends/families houses or all you can eat places. By no means accurate but helps me not demolish everything on offer.0
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TimothyFish wrote: »Because the size of the hand is relative to the body size, people who need more calories get more calories.
LOL
No, no it's not.0 -
Yeah, random people say silly things. That doesn't mean it isn't different when people who don't weigh and don't lose and claim to be eating in a deficit are told to weight everything.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »
It's different because the "weigh and measure everything" response is almost always given to someone who, inexplicably to him, isn't losing weight despite "knowing" how much he's eating.
Yeah but how is that different than constantly repeating "Weigh and measure EVERYTHING or you will die (but relax, it's just one day, enjoy that birthday cake at the office that you can't accurately log and just guess if you go out to eat some place that doesn't have nutritional info)?"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.
"almost" being the key word there. I've gotten that multiple times, yet I have never said I'm not losing weight. I've even got "How can you know you're at a deficit if you don't weigh your food?" more than once.
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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 -
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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