Health

Visual Cues For Serving Sizes

May 11, 2009
By J White

Monitoring serving or portion sizes is an important part of weight loss. However, measuring out the exact amount can be time consuming and tedious. Luckily there is a easier and quicker way of doing this. Though not as exact as a scale, it does save you some time, which will hopefully make it easier for you to follow through on your weight loss plan.

The method that you can employ will be to use visual cues of objects that you are hopefully familiar with. By using a familiar object you can eyeball the amount of food you are eating. So when you eat a “serving” of a certain food, you can now have a better idea of what a serving looks like.

Visual Cues For Serving Sizes

Baseball Use a baseball as a cue for vegetables. For instance a cup of broccoli is about 1 baseball, while 2 cups of raw, leafy greens are about 2 balls.

tennis_ball Tennis Ball A tennis ball can be used to eye fruit. One tennis ball is about half of cup of sliced fruit. In terms of fruit like apples and oranges, a tennis ball represents a medium size fruit of that variety.

ice_hockey_puck Hockey Puck To Determine the amount of carbohydrates to eat, use a hockey puck as a cue. One puck equals about half a cup of pasta, rice, or dry cereal. It also represents a slice of bread and half a bagel.

deck-of-cards Deck of Cards Your protein intake can be represented by a deck of cards. A 2 1/2 ounces of chicken or fish is a whole deck. A 1 1/2 ounce serving of beef is a half a deck.

Dice You also need your fats, and a visual cue for them are dice. One die is a teaspoon of butter of margarine. For a 1 1/2 teaspoon of peanut butter, the serving is about 2 dice.