Estimating Portion Sizes

Serving sizes are a vital part of eating right.  You can read all the nutritional information you want, but if you don't get the serving size correct you may be over (or under) eating.  At home it's easy to measure and weigh things, but what about when you're out? 

The best way is to measure enough at home so that you know what various portion sizes look like.  But it's also good to have an object you can visualize to help you estimate.  Here are some easy things you can use to imagine common portion sizes, whether you're out or at home.

Estimates of Volume	Estimates of Weight (and other)
1 cup tennis ball ice creap scoop your fist	1 ounce of cheese your thumb a pair of dice
1/2 cup light bulb racquetball	3 ounces of meat a deck of cards your palm (not including wrist/fingers) a cassette tape
2 tbsp ping pong ball golf ball	A "reasonable" potato your fist a light bulb
1 tsp your thumb tip a die ("one dice")

Some of these things are pretty surprising - how many restaurants serve a piece of meat that's only the size of a deck of cards?  And the last baked potato I had was double the size of a "reasonable" one.  Remember that any one thing isn't going to wreck your healthy eating, but if you consistently underestimate you aren't doing yourself any favors.

Do you have any other portion size estimation tips?  Share them below!

- Bill

Comments

[psumommy]

This is excellent, thank you!

[Quix]

I use pretty much the same dishes all the time, so once I've measured out things once, I know what I'm getting. For example, I have these tiny glass mugs that 3/4 of the way full is a serving of ice cream. One full bowl is about 1.5 cups. Getting to know your own dishes is a huge time saver!