Portion Control in Weight Loss. What is a Portion?
All over the Internet, TV, books, magazines, etc, you are told to use portion control to loss weight. Before you can use portion control, you need to know what a portion is. Before you can determine what portions to eat when during your day, you need to know the daily requirement.
The USDA developed a food pyramid years ago. I was introduced to it in elementary school when I was taught the main food groups. While stumbling around the Internet, I found out this is actually a pictorial of the balance one should have between the food groups.
The food groups are:
- Grains - 6 ounces a day
- Vegetables - 2 ½ cups a day
- Fruits - 2 cups every day
- Milk or milk products - 3 cups a day
- Meat/Beams 5 ½ oz every day
Through the years, the USDA has continued to refine their research. There is a wealth of information on their site. As well as downloads and online tools. They break the food pyramid down to focus on children, pregnant women, and ‘normal’ people. I found some down-loadable pdfs on their site which I have put on my new page. Just click on the tab Food Pyramid to see them and download them.
Back to food control: I found a handy little pdf file at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the Department of Health and Human Services.. The site suggests you laminate to carry it with you. I find it to be a very handy tool. Will these tools help you? How? What other tools do you find helpful?
Click here download the pdf file.
on August 8th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Thank you for sharing the portion chart. We always tend to forget that our biggest enemy in many cases resides in the quantity of food we eat at each meal.