It is amazing how many of us are on a diet. We are watching what we eat and are doing regular exercise, yet we have not lost weight. Incorrect portion size can have a positive impact or a negative impact on your attempts at losing weight.
Incorrect portion sizes can make your diet or break your diet. Eating a handful of chips now and again and scoffing that spoonful of dressing can make a considerable difference. Check out the following information below to help you take control of your portion sizes, or check out our portion control tips.
The impact of wrong portion sizes
Cheese/Dressing
Four cubes of cheese make up an ounce. The usual serving size for salad dressing is approximately a teaspoon. A serving gives you 45 calories. Should you double that amount then just dressing on a salad can give you nearly 100 calories.
Hamburgers
The usual hamburger serving size is 2ozs (50 grams). However, many restaurants do serve burgers which are between 6 and 8 ozs in weight.
A 2oz burger gives you around 50 calories and 13 grams of fat. Whereas, an 8oz burger can increase that somewhat to an amazing 590 calories and 50 grams of fat.
Crisps
Fortunately, in the UK, the average bag of crisps is 25 grams. That makes your crisp portion sizes easier to control. Be wary of party sized bags of crisps.
25 grams of crisps gives you 130 calories and 9 grams of fat. Try not to buy the big bags of crisps as you can easily eat your way to 500 plus calories very quickly.
Chocolate
Chocolate is a high calorie and high fat food. However, thankfully there is lots of choice with regard to portions available that you can eat. A Cadbury’s treat size chocolate bar is 15 grams, with only 79 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. The normal size bar of chocolate is 54 grams, giving you 286 calories and 16 grams of fat.
Mashed potato
It is also easy to eat a wrong portion of staple foods. The average serving of mashed potato is three scoops and 180 grams. Increasing your average portion to 5 scoops raises your fat intake by 5 grams, whilst your energy intake goes up by 130 calories.
Rice
The average cooked rice serving size is 180 grams which is about half a mug of uncooked rice. This provides you with 250 calories and 2 grams of fat. Should you get a take-away you can be served up to 300 grams of rice which can practically feed two people, giving you 414 calories and 4 grams of fat.
Curry
When you eat a curry in a restaurant and or you get takeaway, portions are often large. Your average serving of homemade vegetable curry weighs 200 grams, giving you 210 calories and 15 grams of fat. On the other hand, a restaurant or take away serving can be 300 grams, providing you with 315 calories and 22 grams of fat.
Ice cream
It is easy to slip up when it comes to portions of ice cream. The average ice cream serving is around 75 grams, just over two scoops. This gives you 145 calories, with 7 grams of fat. However, it is easy to end up with 3 scoops of ice cream, dramatically increasing your fat intake by 10 grams and your energy intake to 200 calories.
Bread
It may not be the first thing that strikes you, yet you can serve yourself and others a huge quantity of bread without realizing it. A sandwich of two medium slices of bread gives you 170 calories, weighs 72 grams and has 1 gram of fat. On the other hand, selecting a sandwich made with a 6 inch diameter bap gives you 2 grams of fat as well as 263 calories for just the bread.
Cheese
The average portion of cheese ought to be 40 grams. Lots of people use anywhere up to four times that amount in order to fill their sandwich. Four ounces (100 grams) of cheddar provides an immense 39 grams of fat as well as 460 calories in contrast to 20 grams of fat and 230 calories for a two-ounce serving.
Few last tips
- Only measure once. Over the course of a week measure and weigh everything that you are going to eat.
- Knowing what different quantities of various foods look like will enable you to know how much your bowls, plates and glasses will hold. Then visualize what portion size will fit each bowl, plate and glass.
- It is a good idea to eat out of smaller plates and bowls as you will automatically eat less.
- It is sensible to choose individual sized portion snacks in order to avoid over eating, such as, a 125 gram pot of yogurt, crackers or biscuits which come in packs of twos or even threes like jaffa cakes or fig rolls.
