If anyone has spent time trying to lose weight or even GAIN weight we should have at least learned about the importance of mindful portions. The biggest reason why well-intended people do not lose weight?
They underestimate their food portions! They try “eye-balling” it. And while eye balling is better than a complete lack of thought, you still do not REALLY know until you spent years practicing this!
Here is a study done on this topic on how we tend to under report our food on an extremely large scale!
http://damicofitness.com/wp-content/uploads/underreporting-food.pdf
Measuring Food
A tool many of us use for measuring is cups and spoons. Most serving sizes on packages offer servings in regards to cups. This is a great tool to combat the ones who tend to under or over estimate their portions on a large scale. So the extremely overweight and the extremely underweight. Having a rough general idea of what is a cup of rice and what is two cups will be great first steps to getting one out of the unhealthy body comp they are in. I use rice as an example that many of us can relate to over-measuring!
Measuring Tool Flaws
Measuring tools are a great step for many people to educate themselves on rough portions they should be eating. If you are obese and in need of roughly 50lbs of fat loss, measuring cups/spoons should work just fine as long as you are honestly measuring and recording. But for others who do not have to lose as much weight, these types of techniques can be trickier.
The Flaw
I want you to take a look at these photos below…
Photo 1 shows a serving size of walnuts and photo 2 is a serving size of dry oats. Two staple foods that nobody would mistake for being unhealthy for the most part.
Photo 1 is a 1/4 cup serving of walnuts like on the label. And notice how I also placed the walnuts on a food scale which measures the food in grams. Each label usually will come with a gram serving size as well. Do you notice how this 1/4 cup serving appears to be higher than the 28 gram serving of walnuts which is said on the label? Google “Walnut 1/4 cup serving” and you will see that it is a 28 gram serving size…
This extra 8 grams seems pish posh to some. But you are looking at a 52 calorie difference between what you’re consuming and what you are recording. These types of mistakes with each food you can easily over shoot your calories for the day by a couple hundred. If you do this once a week, it’s no problem. But everyday it can become something that can rapidly slow down progress!
Lets see photo 2. Which is typically an even worse culprit. The oats are a 1/2 cup serving at 40 grams. Notice how the 1/2 cup dry serving is not 40 grams when measured at a level serving!
While these are small errors. These miscounts WILL add up. If you are struggling to lose body fat and you are diligently tracking your intake, weighing your food on a scale in grams will deliver much more accurate readings! You can buy food scales at any store and on Amazon!
Take Away
I strongly recommend people purchase food scales. If you find you are stagnating in fat loss there is a good chance you are overeating at each meal without even knowing. One or two meals should not be the difference maker over a span of a week, but if this is done day in and day out meal after meal, you maybe unaware of the fact that you are over eating! Take the extra 30 seconds, your fitness goals will thank you!
Mike