HAND METHOD PORTION CONTROL

Portioning your food is an important part of managing your weight and is commonly done with a scale or measuring cups. Instead of using the two most popular methods, however, you can simply use your fingers, palms, and fists to estimate portion sizes for meal and snack items. All you have to do is check out the visual reference to find out how!

Now, why would you use your hands rather than a scale or measuring cups?

Ha, there are two reasons!

For one, your hands are always with you so the hand method for portion control is useful when you’re eating out. Second, unlike its competing methods, the hand method doesn’t require any extra equipment or steps, which makes it easy to perform. As such, it’s of benefit if you find measuring your food by traditional means to be too much of a drain on your time and energy.

Now, as convenient as the hand portion method is, it must be noted that it isn’t as accurate as the gold standard method, which is weighing. That said, it’s accurate enough to help you make sure that you’re eating the right amount of food to reach your goals.¹To create a balanced plate, you should eat 1-2 fists of vegetables, 1-2 cupped hands of carbs, 1-2 palms of lean protein, and 1-2 thumbs of fat at most, if not all, of your meals. Depending on your exact weight management goal, add or remove one half portion of carbs or fat from each meal when a plateau occurs.

Glossary: dietary fat, goal

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.

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