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 Avoid Portion Distortion
By Xun Zhao, M.D., Internal Medicine


Real-World Serving Sizes

Are the portion sizes you're eating just right? Check out this helpful chart comparing serving sizes to everyday objects.

Serving Sizes   Everyday Objects
1 cup of cereal   A fist
½ cup of cooked rice, pasta or potato   ½ baseball
1 baked potato   A fist
1 medium fruit   A baseball
½ cup of
fresh fruit		   ½ baseball
1½ ounces of low-fat or fat-free cheese   4 stacked dice
½ cup of ice cream   ½ baseball
2 tablespoons of peanut butter   Ping-pong ball
¼ cup raisins   Large egg
3 ounces of meat or poultry   Deck of playing cards
Controlling your weight calls for choosing a healthy variety of foods and watching how much and how often you eat. But how? To start, it's helpful to know the difference between a portion and a serving size.

The Skinny on Serving Sizes
A portion is how much food you eat at one time, while a serving size is the standardized amount of food — such as cups or pieces and grams or ounces — that appears on the Nutrition Facts label on most packaged foods. Check the "Servings per Container" section underneath the "Serving Size" listed at the top of the Nutrition Facts label. Keep in mind that most packaged foods contain more than a single serving.

What Are You Eating?
According to Xun Zhao, M.D., internal medicine physician and on staff at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, "It's hard for most people to judge how much they're eating. But there are steps you can take to get you on track." Dr. Zhao suggests the following:

Keeping a food diary. Writing down when, what, how much, where and why you eat can help you be aware of how much you're eating and the times and situations when you tend to eat too much. This knowledge can help you make different choices in the future.

Measuring your food. When cooking for yourself, use measuring cups and spoons for a week or so to measure your usual food portions. Then put the suggested serving size from the Nutrition Facts label on your plate and compare it to how much you usually eat.

Tips for At Home or On the Go
Whether you're eating at home, at a restaurant or on the road, try these tips for keeping your portion sizes reasonable:
  • Eat your food off a plate instead of out of the box or bag.
  • Avoid eating while watching TV or doing other activities. Eat slowly and stop eating when you start to feel full.
  • Share your meal. Have at least half of your meal boxed up or order a half-portion or an appetizer as a main meal.
  • Eat at regular intervals. Skipping meals or waiting a long time between meals might lead you to eat more later.

Controlling your weight calls for choosing a healthy variety of foods and watching how much and how often you eat.

Other ideas: Freeze food that you won't serve right away when cooking in large batches; when buying snacks, go for single-serving prepackaged foods and healthier options like low-fat or fat-free yogurt, smoothies, fruit or whole-grain crackers; and take seconds of vegetables and salads instead of higher fat and calorie foods.

Avoid large or "supersize" sugar-sweetened beverages or entrees; when traveling, pack a small cooler of healthy foods that are hard to find on the road, such as fresh fruit, sliced raw vegetables and fat-free or low-fat yogurt. Also pack a few bottles
of water.

With just a few simple changes you'll be on your way to taking control of your
portion sizes.
Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
Chris Siebenaler – Chief Executive Officer
Janet Leatherwood – Chief Nursing Officer
Lowell Stanton – Chief Financial Officer
Leena Taneja – Director, Physician Relations & Marketing
Leading Medicine in Fort Bend County is published by Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. The information is intended to educate the public about subjects pertinent to their health, not as a substitute for consultation with a personal physician. Images may be from one or more of these sources: ©Jupiterimages, ©Getty Images, ©iStock, ©PhotoSpin. All rights reserved. ©2008.