Portion Size by the Handful
TimothyFish
Posts: 4,925 Member
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?
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?
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Replies
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I don't use this method often at all,I prefer using a food scale.I'm no good at eyeballing sizes.
But I have used the palm method when I'm eating at someone's home who doesn't own a food scale. I have no clue if it was accurate or not but figured it would be better then just plopping any amount of food on my plate lol!0 -
I use my hand to measure almonds. I've weighed them several times randomly and I can measure .75 or 1 oz pretty accurately with my palm.
What would be the point of a serving of peanut butter the size of the tip of my thumb?? ::noway::0 -
The main flaw for me is that the area of the palm of my hand is two dimensional whereas chicken breast isn't.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »I use my hand to measure almonds. I've weighed them several times randomly and I can measure .75 or 1 oz pretty accurately with my palm.
What would be the point of a serving of peanut butter the size of the tip of my thumb?? ::noway::
I wondered about that too. Two tablespoons is more like the size of a ping pong ball. I have fairly large hands, but even the tip of my thumb isn't that large.0 -
DeguelloTex wrote: »The main flaw for me is that the area of the palm of my hand is two dimensional whereas chicken breast isn't.
I don't think she said it in the video, but I've heard other people say "the size and thickness of the palm."0 -
Nothing beats a food scale. However, I would use those methods if I can not access my food scale.0
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How could this method compare to weighing your food out? Everyone has the same size hands right?0
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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.0
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No, this doesn't work for me at all.
For example, chicken breast. A really thick chicken breast that is smaller than my palm size.... how the hell am I supposed to know what that is?
Nope, nope. Everything on the food scale. It's better for me that way. I don't want to guess, I want to be accurate.0 -
And I would still grossly underestimate, which is why I stick to my food scale0
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4.75 digi food scale incl delivery here in the uk.. ....safest for me. Grabbing handfuls is what got me here0
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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?
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?0 -
Nope, there's no way of that working accurately. For me, I'm on the taller side (5'7), but I have relatively small hands. I would probably end up not eating enough if I were to measure this way.0
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Too inaccurate for most people imo. I can see it working, but only for those flexible enough to be mostly tere anyway, people still eyeball ok, but then plenty olof others never need to diet in the first place because they naturally portion control.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.
If more accurate measuring devices aren't available, then yeah that would be close enough for gubmint work
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yopeeps025 wrote: »How could this method compare to weighing your food out? Everyone has the same size hands right?
As I understand it, the point of using your hands is that you would start with the guidelines, let's say 2-3 servings of meat per day, and use your hand to determine what size a serving is. If you wanted to know how many calories were in that serving, you would need to weigh the portion. A smaller person would end up with fewer calories and a larger person would end up with more calories, but they would both be eating the same number of servings.
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TimothyFish wrote: »yopeeps025 wrote: »How could this method compare to weighing your food out? Everyone has the same size hands right?
As I understand it, the point of using your hands is that you would start with the guidelines, let's say 2-3 servings of meat per day, and use your hand to determine what size a serving is. If you wanted to know how many calories were in that serving, you would need to weigh the portion. A smaller person would end up with fewer calories and a larger person would end up with more calories, but they would both be eating the same number of servings.
Serving size is a serving size and does not change whether I have more body weight. That I have never heard before.
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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.0
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This is not a new concept. The hand and other visual measurements for serving sizes (e.g. meat the size of a deck of cards) has been around for decades. It's not meant as a replacement for weighing food. It's meant as a simple method of determining portions for the vast majority of people who don't or can't weigh everything they eat.
Common sense should be enough for a person with larger/smaller than average hands to know that they should adjust accordingly.0 -
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 -
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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?
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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