What does and ounce look like?

allisshiney
allisshiney Posts: 107 Member
edited September 28 in Health and Weight Loss
Help! I'm struggling to track foods when they are listed on ounces. The main ones I need help on are meats and cheese. Suggestions?

Replies

  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
    You can usually find these answers online if you google it.
    I found this. Hope it helps


    Food 1 Serving Equals...
    Breads, pasta, cereal, cooked grain, etc. •1 slice of bread (looks like a CD case)
    •1/2 a bagel (the size of a hockey puck)
    •1 cup cereal (looks like two hands cupped together)
    •1/2 cup cooked grain or pasta (one cupped palm)

    Fruits •1 piece of fruit (the size of a tennis ball)
    •1/2 cup cut up fruit, raw, cooked, frozen, or canned (looks like 7 cotton balls)
    •1/4 cup dried fruit
    •3/4 cup 100% fruit juice

    Veggies •1/2 cup cut up veggie, raw, cooked, frozen, or canned (looks like the bulb part of a light bulb)
    •1/2 cup cooked, canned or frozen legumes
    •1 cup leafy greens
    •3/4 cup 100% vegetable juice

    Meat, chicken, or fish •3 ounces (looks like a deck of cards or a checkbook)
    •1 egg

    Dairy •1oz. of cheese (1 oz. looks like 2, 9-volt batteries)
    •1/2 cup ice cream, cottage cheese or pudding
    •1 cup milk or yogurt

    Nuts •1/3 cup (a small handful)
    •1 tbsp nut butter (size of both your thumbs)
  • SimplyDeLish
    SimplyDeLish Posts: 539
    The best investment you'll ever make is a food scale. Get a cheap one at Wal-mart at about $20. I was amazed at what my guesses were compared to actual!
  • LovingMe19
    LovingMe19 Posts: 380 Member
    I got a food scale from the dollar store. Works great and was totally worth it. Best investment you could make!
  • asilva3111
    asilva3111 Posts: 44
    Have to agree. The best investment is a digital scale. Once you measure/weight your food for about a month, you get to learn and you can do it without the scale +/- pretty close. So, the dieting becomes a lifestyle and you can even go to restaurants and see if they are serving you too much so you really don't break the scale too much after visiting your favorite restaurant.

    Get a digital since you can zero it out with a plate on top. Many times what I do is zero the scale with the plate on top, follow by putting my steak at around 5-6 oz, zero it out again, put in about 2-3 oz of veggies, zero it out, and a whatever my 3rd choice of food, so this way I didn't dirty up several plates. I remember paying under $17 for mine at Walmart.

    Good luck!
  • elliecolorado
    elliecolorado Posts: 1,040
    Food scale is the only way to be accurate. But 4oz of chicken is about the size of a deck of cards and for things like cheese I get an 8oz block so it is 1/8th of it so you can judge roughly by that or could even mark the package where 8ths would be, or however many ounces it is divide it that many times. Just a suggestion :-)
  • tuffytuffy1
    tuffytuffy1 Posts: 920 Member
    I buy Cabot block cheese made with 1% milk, and it has the ounces marked on it. I think cream cheese blocks do too. To me, an ounce of a hard cheese like that looks like a 1 inch rectangle.

    I also agree with the scale. I use it often. The other night, I knew I needed to keep my dinner meal down to about 400 calories and I needed to eat no more than 3 ounces of boneless rib eye.
  • TourThePast
    TourThePast Posts: 1,753 Member
    Help! I'm struggling to track foods when they are listed on ounces. The main ones I need help on are meats and cheese. Suggestions?
    Get a food scale, preferably the sort that you can put a plate on and then zero the scale, so you can easily measure what you're adding to the plate.

    It is SO easy to guess, and get it wrong, undoing all your good work.

    The foods you say you need help with are just the ones that add huge amounts of calories if you overestimate .
  • woja9640
    woja9640 Posts: 450 Member
    I agree about the scale. However, as you continue you will find it gets easier to estimate by sight a serving size. I remember a couple months ago, about half way in, I was able to estimate 1 serving size of tri tip (3oz) on sight and surprise, when I double checked on the scale, I was spot on.
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