Healthy portion sizes

How to determine what is a healthy portion size?

Trying to lose weight is far from an easy thing to do, and using diets only will reduce weight, but it is much more effective to exercise, too. Exercises will speed up the metabolism and that additionally helps. As for diet, simply eating less is not smart. Some people who want to go on a diet, simply eliminate one meal and think that it is enough. Real diets include all 5 meals, three main courses and two snacks. Main thing about diet is that portion sizes have to be healthy and all major food types (proteins, fat, carbohydrates and vitamins) have to be included.

It is not easy to determine a healthy portion size. If the diet is based on weighting the food that will be eaten, than the portion size is determined by that weight. Still, veggies are very light so the portion size in that case is very big. Making healthy big portions is very smart, especially for those who just started with diets. Big meal with healthy food will satisfy the urge for overeating, which is sometimes one of the biggest problem that people with obesity have. Size of snacks is easily determined when taking fruits and veggies, because no matter how much of those are eaten, intake of calories is low. This especially goes for vegetables, which do have much less sugar than fruits, if at all.

How does the type of the diet affect the portion size?

Healthy portion sizes are defined by the type of the diet used. If a diet is balanced one, weight of food will determine the portion size. Meat should not include more than about 3 ounces a day. Caution has to prevail when it comes to cereals, simply because the values differ from one brand of cereals to another, so the same weight can have different energy values. Food like pasta should not exceed the size of a fist. Bread should be avoided, but if already used, it should be some healthy type (with diet fibers, for example). Minimum size of bread allowed per day is about 5 slices, but that depends on the type and the way it is cut.

This all means that, when it comes to a healthy portion size, if you are not patient enough to measure the weight and cannot tell for sure if the portion is too big or not, just eat less, since there can’t be a mistake then. There is no type of food that can be eaten as much as possible. Some general tip would be to eat until the stomach is full and not more. Eating more will create a feeling of discomfort and more blood from the system will be redirected to stomach area. Starting a diet is fairly easy, but being consistent with it for a long time, requires a lot of patience and dedication.