A friend of ours recently purchased a food scale and started weighing her food in order to determine portion sizes. Here’s what she said: “Got a food scale last week to get correct portion sizes. This has been an eye opening experience. No wonder I have had a weight problem, lol!”
When it comes to eating, ignorance is not bliss. This is
especially true when you have food in abundance, as is the case in America.
Most of us get up every morning and basically eat whatever we want, not knowing
or ever considering how much food we really need. So why is knowing correct
portion sizes important?
Because you only need so much
food per day. How will you know if you are getting enough or, as is most often
the case, too much if you have absolutely no system of measurement?
Food is enjoyable. Food is a cornerstone of social
interaction. Food is comfort. But first and foremost, food is fuel. It provides energy for the body to support daily life functions in addition to any other activities we do. If you take in too much, the excess energy is stored as fat. If you continue to store fat day after day, well, you get fat.
Eating without any frame of reference is just a bad idea. So how do you approach portion control so you don't eat too much? You have to start with the basic unit of energy measurement for food: the calorie.
A calorie, when it comes to food, is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 °C. It is a measure of energy. Food has potential energy that can be converted to real energy in the human body. The science behind calories have been around since the late 1800s, and just about every food imaginable has a determined calorie count. And the information is readily available to most everyone at any given time.
So how many calories do you need a day? The answer depends on certain variables such as your age, sex, and activity level. It is easy to determine your basic calorie needs through many different websites. Just search calorie calculators. If you are trying to lose weight, you need to use more calories a day than you take in. You should try to lose no more than 1 to 2 pounds a week unless cleared by a doctor to lose more. A handy webpage for figuring what you need and tracking food is MyFitnessPal.
So now you know how many calories you need in a day to lose weight. A pound of body fat equals about 3500 calories, so to lose a pound a week, you need to take in 3500 less than what you use. Most all packaged foods come with the calorie count for that food printed on the label. For instance, I am looking at a can of soup that contains 2 servings. Each serving has 120 calories. When I eat the can of soup for lunch, I will have taken in 240 calories. If I needed to measure out a serving, the label tells me that one serving is one cup. Here comes the need to track portions.
If you know the calorie count in a certain amount of food, then you need to know how much you are taking in to correctly track your intake. It may need to be measured in volume or in weight. The soup I have tells me the number of calories in each cup. Less liquid foods may be labeled by weight, usually in grams. I purchased a food scale at Wal Mart in order to better track portion sizes at home.
If you have a food such as produce or meat that is harder to determine due to no label information, the USDA has thousands of foods and their calorie values on their website.
So there you go. Can you see why portion control is so important? A food that is very dense in calories can get you in hot water very quickly if you eat too much. One of my favorites is peanut butter. Just two tablespoons contains about 200 calories! It's a great food and is not necessarily bad for you, but the calorie count is high. I could easily eat 8 tablespoons in no time. I need to be sure I am portioning it out when I eat it so that I don't go over my daily limit for losing weight.
Our problem in America when it comes to portions and what we need is sheer ingnorance. Most of us don't know what we need each day, and we merrily shove into our mouths whatever we want based on how the food makes us feel. Don't be misinformed! Take charge of your health and know what you are taking in.
A calorie, when it comes to food, is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 °C. It is a measure of energy. Food has potential energy that can be converted to real energy in the human body. The science behind calories have been around since the late 1800s, and just about every food imaginable has a determined calorie count. And the information is readily available to most everyone at any given time.
So how many calories do you need a day? The answer depends on certain variables such as your age, sex, and activity level. It is easy to determine your basic calorie needs through many different websites. Just search calorie calculators. If you are trying to lose weight, you need to use more calories a day than you take in. You should try to lose no more than 1 to 2 pounds a week unless cleared by a doctor to lose more. A handy webpage for figuring what you need and tracking food is MyFitnessPal.
So now you know how many calories you need in a day to lose weight. A pound of body fat equals about 3500 calories, so to lose a pound a week, you need to take in 3500 less than what you use. Most all packaged foods come with the calorie count for that food printed on the label. For instance, I am looking at a can of soup that contains 2 servings. Each serving has 120 calories. When I eat the can of soup for lunch, I will have taken in 240 calories. If I needed to measure out a serving, the label tells me that one serving is one cup. Here comes the need to track portions.
If you know the calorie count in a certain amount of food, then you need to know how much you are taking in to correctly track your intake. It may need to be measured in volume or in weight. The soup I have tells me the number of calories in each cup. Less liquid foods may be labeled by weight, usually in grams. I purchased a food scale at Wal Mart in order to better track portion sizes at home.
If you have a food such as produce or meat that is harder to determine due to no label information, the USDA has thousands of foods and their calorie values on their website.
So there you go. Can you see why portion control is so important? A food that is very dense in calories can get you in hot water very quickly if you eat too much. One of my favorites is peanut butter. Just two tablespoons contains about 200 calories! It's a great food and is not necessarily bad for you, but the calorie count is high. I could easily eat 8 tablespoons in no time. I need to be sure I am portioning it out when I eat it so that I don't go over my daily limit for losing weight.
Our problem in America when it comes to portions and what we need is sheer ingnorance. Most of us don't know what we need each day, and we merrily shove into our mouths whatever we want based on how the food makes us feel. Don't be misinformed! Take charge of your health and know what you are taking in.
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