Portion Control Guidelines – The Healthy Mummy

Portion control is one of the most important factors in weight loss, weight maintenance and weight gain, especially when you are trying to lose weight.

If you eat just the right amount of food, you’ll strike a balance and you’ll be able to lose weight. If you eat too much food, you’ll gain weight – and if you eat too little (which many women do because they think it will boost weight loss), you could plateau or actually gain weight and you run the risk of becoming malnourished. So how do you strike the right balance?

Wherever you go – whether you’re eating out, grabbing a sandwich on the run or getting a coffee, it’s likely that you’ll find that the portion sizes are huge. And this increase in portion sizes out of the house means that many of us are starting to serve larger portions at home.

This is due to a number of reasons – but one of the key factors is that we are often encouraged as children to eat everything on our plates to reduce waste, or encouraged to eat everything at dinner so that we get a dessert. This ingrained habit can cause us to overeat right into adulthood, as we get confused as to how much food we should actually be eating.

Often, when we’re given a full plate of food, we eat everything on offer – or we pile our plate so that it’s full of food, because we don’t know the right portion sizes or because we find it difficult to assess the portions that are on the plate.

What is a portion of food?

A portion is the amount of a food that you eat at one time, for example how much food you put on your plate at a meal or how much is in a packet.

Portion Control Tips

Government guidelines recommend that you eat a number of portions of foods from different food groups each and every day to get a range of vitamins and nutrients to support your health.

Fruits and Vegetables

Guidelines recommend that you eat at least 5 or more portions of fruits and vegetables every day, but the optimum is at least 2 portions of fruit and 4 portions of vegetables. A portion of fruits and veggies is generally considered to be a large handful of the raw fruit or vegetable.

Fruit and Vegetables – What is a Portion?

Type of Food	Portion Size	What Does This Look Like?
Apple / Pear / Orange / Banana	80g	One medium (size of clenched fist)
Grapes	80g	10-12 or handful
Berries	80g	15-20 or cupped hands
Plums/Apricots/Kiwis/Satsumas	80g	Two fruits
Dried Fruit (e.g., Raisins)	30g	A small handful/one tablespoon
Peas / Carrots / Sweetcorn / Mixed Vegetables	80g	Three heaped tablespoons
Pepper	80g	Half
Cherry Tomatoes	80g	Seven
Cucumber	80g	2.5cm piece
Salad	80g	Cereal bowlful

Wholegrains/Carbohydrates

Each meal should include a portion of carbohydrates, ideally wholegrain carbohydrates to keep you fuller for longer and to improve digestive health. 6 portions of wholegrain carbohydrates are recommended per day – but  if you eat a potato, this should be taken as a carbohydrate portion rather than a vegetable portion.

A standard portion of potato should be the size of a computer mouse (225g), a portion of spaghetti pasta should be less than 1.5cm in diameter (I keep a small coin in the cupboard so that I can hold the pasta up against it, that way, I know I have the perfect serving size!), a portion of shaped pasta should be a small heaped handful (40g dry) and a portion (150g) of cooked rice should be, when packed together, around the size of a small tin of tuna.

Carbohydrates – what is a portion?

Type of Food	Portion Size	What Does This Look Like?
Bread	34g-36g	One medium slice
Pasta (boiled)	75g uncooked / 150g cooked	Two to three tablespoons
Rice (boiled)	50g uncooked / 150g cooked	Two to three tablespoons
Potatoes (boiled with skin)*	175g	Three (egg-sized) or five to six (thumb-sized new potatoes)
Baked Potato (with skin)*	180g	One medium
Puffed or Flaked Breakfast Cereals	30g	Three tablespoons / two biscuits
Porridge Oats / Shredded Cereals	40g	Three tablespoons
Muesli / Granola	45g	Two to three tablespoons

Protein/Dairy

Protein and dairy are a key part of any diet – they improve general health and they can boost weight loss. Portions of protein (2.5 a day) should always be around the size of your palm. Protein in the form of lean meat, like chicken, beef, game or pork should be trimmed of all visible fat. A portion of tofu should be the size of your palm, and a portion of beans should be a small heaped handful.

Dairy portions should be kept fairly small, as they tend to contain more fat – a portion of milk should be a small glass of 250ml, a portion of yoghurt should be a small 50g-100g pot and a portion of cheese should be matchbox-sized (28g). Cheese should be eaten less frequently than milk and yoghurt as it contains more fat.

Dairy and Alternatives – What is a Portion?

Type of Food	Portion Size	What Does This Look Like?
Milk	200ml (1/3 pint)	One glass
Calcium Fortified Plant-Based Alternative	200ml (1/3 pint)	One glass
Yoghurt	125g-150g	One standard pot / three tablespoons
Cheese (hard)	30g	A small matchbox-sized piece

Protein – What is a Portion?

Type of Food	Portion Size	What Does This Look Like?
Animal Protein
Cooked Meat (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Mince, Chicken, Turkey)	90g	A deck of cards
Cooked White Fish (Cod or Plaice) or Canned Fish	140g	Palm of hand
Cooked Oily Fish (Salmon, Mackerel, Sardines)	140g	Palm of hand
Eggs	120g	Two medium
Plant Protein
Baked Beans	150g	Four tablespoons
Beans (Kidney Beans, Butterbeans, Black Eyed Beans)	150g	Four tablespoons
Pulses (Lentils, Chickpeas)	150g	Four tablespoons
Soya/Tofu, Plant-Based Meat Alternative	100g	Four tablespoons
Unsalted Nuts or Nut Butter	30g	One handful or tablespoon

Fat

It might surprise you, but guidelines recommend that you eat three portions of heart healthy fats each day – maximum serving should be 1 tbsp. of heart healthy fat, such as extra-virgin olive oil. These fats improve the health of your skin, hair and nails, and they also boost the health of your internal systems and your eyes.

Oils and Spreads – What is a Portion?

Type of Food	Portion Size	What Does This Look Like?
Butter or Spread	5g	One teaspoon
Oil	5ml / 3g	One teaspoon
Oil	15ml / 11g	One tablespoon

Tips to Remember

Once you’ve gotten used to these portion sizes, you’ll start to do them out of habit – which will keep you on track.

One tip is to serve your dinner on smaller plates – that way, if you eat the whole plate of food, it doesn’t matter! Some pile half of the plate with vegetables. Portion servers are a great tip too – spaghetti servers will tell you how much spaghetti to cook, while a clean tuna tin that you can pack cooked rice into is an easy way to portion rice – it’s a great way to present it too!

If you prefer, you can weigh your food – just be sure to reset the scale to zero when you’ve put your plate on top of it. Once you’ve weighed your food out a few times, you’ll get used to the portion size. Whichever method you choose, stick with it once you’ve found something that works for you!

And you can also check your BMR here to ensure your calorie intake is enough for your own body type – or if you are intaking too much calories.