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Why confusing serving size with portion size can ruin your diet?
Do you know the difference between serving size and portion size? If you are trying to lose weight, improve your eating habits, or change the way your body looks you need to understand how portions and servings are different. Confusing them could ruin your diet.
Health, weight loss, diet, serving size, portion size, eating habit
1. What is a serving? Serving size is the amount of any single food that you should eat when you sit down at mealtime. The easiest way of figuring out the serving size of your food is to check the Nutrition Facts Label. The amount is usually recorded in grams and also in household terms such as cups, ounces or other units. For some foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, don’t come with a label, here recommends consumption in “cups” per day, rather than servings.
2. What is a portion? A portion size is the amount of food that you actually consume at mealtime or at snack time. For example, let's say you snack on low-calorie popcorn. A serving size, according to the Nutrition Facts Label is 7.5 cups or 37 grams. But there are two servings in each full size bag. So if you eat the whole bag, your portion size was 15 cups or 74 grams.
3. Why portion size matters? Portion size is key when you record your food intake with any of the popular calorie-tracking apps or online services. When you record a food that you’ve eaten, it's easy to click the “Add” button without paying attention to serving size and portion size. But if the amounts don’t match, you’ll end up with an inaccurate calorie count. To get the correct calorie count, you need to be sure that your portion size is accurately entered. To do this, choose “grams” in the drop down box and manually enter the number 74.
4. How to use serving size to improve your diet? Use serving size as your guide for how much you should eat of any given food. If you are trying to lose weight, this will help prevent you from eating too much at mealtime or when you snack.
To measure correct serving sizes, equip your kitchen with good cooking tools like a digital scale and an assortment of measuring cups. The digital scale will give you an accurate measurement (in grams or ounces) of every food you eat. After you measure a food once or twice, you’ll get used to what the correct serving size looks like.
Eventually, your serving sizes and your portion sizes will match up. You’ll find that you are eating moderate portions of essential foods: fruits, veggies and lean proteins, and your eating habits will improve.
Health, weight loss, diet, serving size, portion size, eating habit
1. What is a serving? Serving size is the amount of any single food that you should eat when you sit down at mealtime. The easiest way of figuring out the serving size of your food is to check the Nutrition Facts Label. The amount is usually recorded in grams and also in household terms such as cups, ounces or other units. For some foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, don’t come with a label, here recommends consumption in “cups” per day, rather than servings.
2. What is a portion? A portion size is the amount of food that you actually consume at mealtime or at snack time. For example, let's say you snack on low-calorie popcorn. A serving size, according to the Nutrition Facts Label is 7.5 cups or 37 grams. But there are two servings in each full size bag. So if you eat the whole bag, your portion size was 15 cups or 74 grams.
3. Why portion size matters? Portion size is key when you record your food intake with any of the popular calorie-tracking apps or online services. When you record a food that you’ve eaten, it's easy to click the “Add” button without paying attention to serving size and portion size. But if the amounts don’t match, you’ll end up with an inaccurate calorie count. To get the correct calorie count, you need to be sure that your portion size is accurately entered. To do this, choose “grams” in the drop down box and manually enter the number 74.
4. How to use serving size to improve your diet? Use serving size as your guide for how much you should eat of any given food. If you are trying to lose weight, this will help prevent you from eating too much at mealtime or when you snack.
To measure correct serving sizes, equip your kitchen with good cooking tools like a digital scale and an assortment of measuring cups. The digital scale will give you an accurate measurement (in grams or ounces) of every food you eat. After you measure a food once or twice, you’ll get used to what the correct serving size looks like.
Eventually, your serving sizes and your portion sizes will match up. You’ll find that you are eating moderate portions of essential foods: fruits, veggies and lean proteins, and your eating habits will improve.
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