Portion Control-any apps
jayleeshells
Posts: 17 Member
Portion control is what I seem to struggle with. Does anyone know of any good apps other then Myfitnesspal for helping with portion control such as showing you how much you should be having of certain foods and measurements etc.
Thanks
Thanks
0
Replies
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One thing that could help:
Pre-plan your meals and log before you eat.
Ex: If you want to limit your dinner to 500 calories, pre-logging can tell you how much to eat.
This site works wonders. Give that idea a try? And using a food scale rocks!
* I have my next meal logged. Open diary.
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i agree with pre-logging to see what you can fit in your cals and macros2
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Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.6 -
thanks everyone
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I've never seen an app or anything like that, but I've seen charts and infopics that compare portions to common items like a deck of cards, your palm, etc.
Do a google image search for "serving size reference guide" and you'll get a ton of stuff.1 -
You have to change the amounts you want to be an amount that is within the confines of your goals. You do that by changing your wants.
Maybe the two people who liked and awesomed it can help explain it better.0 -
You just have to alter your wants to be in alignment. Simple!2
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MFP works in a different way, practically the opposite way, to those "how much you should be having of certain foods" infograms, but they are just two different ways to impose portion control while at the same time ensure good nutrition. Most MFP users like the MFP approach, where food is "broken down" into calories, macronutrients and micronutrients, and it's up to the individual to "rebuild" their diet to their own needs. Others prefer to think "food groups" and "serving sizes". Both methods work, if you make them work for you. Do you struggle with knowing what to eat and how much to eat of anything, or to stop eating when you've had enough?
I don't know about any apps, but there are plenty of workarounds - 21 day fix knockoff, the plate model, graphics that use your hands or things like baseballs and computer mice to visualize proper portions. If they help you, use them; I think of these "aids" as useless complications and just additional things to memorize.1 -
I find it better to build your own knowledge bank...so take a visual image of your plate once you have weighed the food and try to fix it in your mind
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Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".3 -
2 -
The app I use is convertunits.com You convert 1/3 cup portions to grams and get 78 g, Then you weigh your food in little pieces until it adds up to 78 g and that's your portion. I toss a variety of vegetables into a skillet for my daily stir-fry. For those, my portion is 50 g each. I pre-log my meals to have a plan for the number and name of the items I will consume, and I stop adding items to my plan when my plan reaches my calorie goal. It all works out to being a pleasing pile of nutrient-dense calorie-light food which is what I want my meal to be.1
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Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.5 -
No, the latter is a limit on the former.
Buy the best house that you can afford.
Buy a house in a school district you like, and that you can afford.
So I read it as: Eat foods you like, in the amount you like, so long as that fits with your calories and nutrition goals, of course!5 -
And the app you are looking for is MFP, which works perfectly well. You have to log for a while sometimes, but you will figure out how to choose amounts of your various foods that result in meeting your calorie and nutrient goals. I don't care what the "serving size" is for braised turkey leg (one of the foods I am eating for dinner). I know how much I should eat to hit my protein and calorie goals and to be able to eat the other foods I want with it.1
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lemurcat12 wrote: »
No, the latter is a limit on the former.
Buy the best house that you can afford.
Buy a house in a school district you like, and that you can afford.
So I read it as: Eat foods you like, in the amount you like, so long as that fits with your calories and nutrition goals, of course!
Right. I know how it works. But the "as long as" part was left out of the original post, which is a BIG qualifier considering what I want to eat is oreos and how much I want to eat is the entire package.1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
No, the latter is a limit on the former.
Buy the best house that you can afford.
Buy a house in a school district you like, and that you can afford.
So I read it as: Eat foods you like, in the amount you like, so long as that fits with your calories and nutrition goals, of course!
Except.....that would be an example of portion control. And the post in question indicated that portion control wasn't a thing.
1. buy any house you want!
2. In whatever neighborhood you want!
337. As long as it's within your budget.
4 -
Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.3 -
jayleeshells wrote: »Portion control is what I seem to struggle with. Does anyone know of any good apps other then Myfitnesspal for helping with portion control such as showing you how much you should be having of certain foods and measurements etc.
Thanks
https://www.eatthismuch.com/
No personal experience, but it appears to be what you want.2 -
Thanks everyone0
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michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
No, the latter is a limit on the former.
Buy the best house that you can afford.
Buy a house in a school district you like, and that you can afford.
So I read it as: Eat foods you like, in the amount you like, so long as that fits with your calories and nutrition goals, of course!
Except.....that would be an example of portion control. And the post in question indicated that portion control wasn't a thing.
1. buy any house you want!
2. In whatever neighborhood you want!
337. As long as it's within your budget.
I don't think cityruss was saying portion control wasn't a thing. He was saying ignore set portions (like a portion of chicken = 4 oz or a portion of pasta = 56 g).
So to continue with the analogy, don't think you must buy a house that's between 2000 and 2500 square feet only, but instead buy a house as large as you want and can afford in the area you want to live in, without sacrificing other things you need to spend money on.
(Not that house size is all that, just an example.)1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
No, the latter is a limit on the former.
Buy the best house that you can afford.
Buy a house in a school district you like, and that you can afford.
So I read it as: Eat foods you like, in the amount you like, so long as that fits with your calories and nutrition goals, of course!
Right. I know how it works. But the "as long as" part was left out of the original post, which is a BIG qualifier considering what I want to eat is oreos and how much I want to eat is the entire package.
if you're on about the peanut butter creme ones, i completely agree!0 -
kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.
I like this too, and agree.
I started thinking of meat portion sizes as 4 oz raw (for some reason I was actually quite familiar with standard serving sizes on some things), pasta as 56 g dry, vegetables and tubers as about 100 g (this one I just made up because round #), cheese as 1 oz, ice cream as .5 cup (same for cottage cheese and yogurt) (although I'd use the grams that went with .5 cup), and over time, as I was logging and paying attention to goals and what was filling and tasted good, I adjusted. I quickly realized that for meat and fish more than the serving size usually worked for me, for pasta the serving size was good, maybe even less and then more sauce (as a kid I was taught that it was better to have more pasta, less sauce/toppings, since that's what Italians supposedly did, but I always liked the sauce or other toppings best, so now mix a little pasta with my lean meat and veg based sauce). For veg I usually eat more than the 100 (or 100 of 2-3 different veg), for potatoes I may be happy with 75 g, but really go by eye and what I'm having overall -- using MFP for a while means I can combine foods pretty easily to get the general mix in my day that I'm going for, I just know it intuitively now.1 -
I hardly ever follow "suggested" serving sizes on packages. If it says 40g and i want 60g and i have the calories for it i'll eat 60g and not worry about it. I've seen on here people who weigh their bread slice and if its over weight they cut part off to make it right instead of just adjusting the weight they log. I think its ridiculous to cut off and throw out 12g or so to make something match a suggested serving size.
edited for spelling. . holy crap!2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.
I like this too, and agree.
I started thinking of meat portion sizes as 4 oz raw (for some reason I was actually quite familiar with standard serving sizes on some things), pasta as 56 g dry, vegetables and tubers as about 100 g (this one I just made up because round #), cheese as 1 oz, ice cream as .5 cup (same for cottage cheese and yogurt) (although I'd use the grams that went with .5 cup), and over time, as I was logging and paying attention to goals and what was filling and tasted good, I adjusted. I quickly realized that for meat and fish more than the serving size usually worked for me, for pasta the serving size was good, maybe even less and then more sauce (as a kid I was taught that it was better to have more pasta, less sauce/toppings, since that's what Italians supposedly did, but I always liked the sauce or other toppings best, so now mix a little pasta with my lean meat and veg based sauce). For veg I usually eat more than the 100 (or 100 of 2-3 different veg), for potatoes I may be happy with 75 g, but really go by eye and what I'm having overall -- using MFP for a while means I can combine foods pretty easily to get the general mix in my day that I'm going for, I just know it intuitively now.
I'm pretty sure your attitude make you sound like an anarchist to the 21 day fixers
I have another example. I accidentally opened the wrong carton of milk yesterday (I had overbought; usually I buy just one, and I had already bought one, but I snatched another that was marked down because of date - I can use both if I plan well - I remembered that I had two, but alas, too late), so I need to use more milk now and reduce some other things instead. It's going to be just fine - I'll replace one crispbread with double amount of milk, and have hot cocoa instead of nuts, etc, for a few days. This would have been impossible if I were to follow the plate model or the "recommended serving sizes" BS. I would just freak out and give up and dive into the potato chips. Because I can decide for myself - I think I will survive. Nothing bad will happen.2 -
kommodevaran wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »michelleepotter wrote: »Forget set 'portions'.
Eat the foods you want, in the amounts that you want, within the confines of your calorie and macronutritional goals.
This is what I do and I thought the first quote was pretty clear about what you were saying.Maybe a better worded way would be...
"Hit your calorie and macronutritional goals however you see fit".
No need to be bound by arbitrary rules like "a portion of chicken is xxx grams", "a portion of rice is xxx grams", "a fistful of beans".
As an example, the serving size shown in the nutritional information may be 28 grams. Some days I may just want 17 grams and some days I may want 40 grams. I'm in charge of how much of it I eat. If I do want 40 grams, I may need to adjust how much I eat of other things so that my calories and macros for the whole day are where I want them to be.
Yes, but this may be one of those "you have to understand the rules in order to break the rules" kind of things. Understanding how much a "standard" serving size would be is part of the process of deciding what serving size you want. If you think a half-pint container of ice cream is a normal serving size, then eating a whole pint seems like an indulgence but maybe not as much of one as it really is. If you realize that the actual serving size is one of those teeny-tiny cups that looks like you could eat it in one bite, then having a regular bowl of ice cream becomes the reasonable indulgence.
Personally, I found that counting calories was the best way to learn this. You learn to read the nutrition information on packaged foods, and compare calories-per-gram on different things, and make decisions about how much you want to eat of any particular food. Do it long enough, and you'll make healthy decisions without having to follow any kind of outside rules, because you'll understand the concepts on which they are based.
I really love this. This has been my experience too. I tried to follow rules that I didn't understand the reasoning behind, failed miserably, and felt miserable and like a failure. With MFP, all that "moralism" got replaced with "science", and I could aim for genuine goals instead of arbitrary markers. Knowledge and freedom of choice does not - contrary to common belief - lead people into diets consisting entirely of cream cakes and cocktail sausages; learning to work with your own feedback system opens up for the realiziation that you really need a healthy and varied diet, and how to feed yourself properly, eating food you like, that is also good for you.
I like this too, and agree.
I started thinking of meat portion sizes as 4 oz raw (for some reason I was actually quite familiar with standard serving sizes on some things), pasta as 56 g dry, vegetables and tubers as about 100 g (this one I just made up because round #), cheese as 1 oz, ice cream as .5 cup (same for cottage cheese and yogurt) (although I'd use the grams that went with .5 cup), and over time, as I was logging and paying attention to goals and what was filling and tasted good, I adjusted. I quickly realized that for meat and fish more than the serving size usually worked for me, for pasta the serving size was good, maybe even less and then more sauce (as a kid I was taught that it was better to have more pasta, less sauce/toppings, since that's what Italians supposedly did, but I always liked the sauce or other toppings best, so now mix a little pasta with my lean meat and veg based sauce). For veg I usually eat more than the 100 (or 100 of 2-3 different veg), for potatoes I may be happy with 75 g, but really go by eye and what I'm having overall -- using MFP for a while means I can combine foods pretty easily to get the general mix in my day that I'm going for, I just know it intuitively now.
I'm pretty sure your attitude make you sound like an anarchist to the 21 day fixers
I have another example. I accidentally opened the wrong carton of milk yesterday (I had overbought; usually I buy just one, and I had already bought one, but I snatched another that was marked down because of date - I can use both if I plan well - I remembered that I had two, but alas, too late), so I need to use more milk now and reduce some other things instead. It's going to be just fine - I'll replace one crispbread with double amount of milk, and have hot cocoa instead of nuts, etc, for a few days. This would have been impossible if I were to follow the plate model or the "recommended serving sizes" BS. I would just freak out and give up and dive into the potato chips. Because I can decide for myself - I think I will survive. Nothing bad will happen.
Does milk actually go bad faster once it's opened? I'd think if you left it in a cold part of the fridge, it would last just fine as long as it would have closed. But I have been known to be wrong before.0 -
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