Creating Quick Ways to Weigh Your Food


Get your portion sizes right to lose weight

Portion control is essential when on a diet. Most people gain weight not because of what they eat but the amount of the stuff they eat.

Yes, you can put weight on even if you eat healthy!

Weighing your food as you cook is important if you want to lose weight and keep it off. Oh, but it’s so time consuming, right? You just want to throw it all in the pan and just be done with it!

Well, now there’s a quicker way of weighing out your food and getting the portions write – creating a cheat sheet!

I have a cheat sheet up in my cupboard and it’s based on an average potion. I also use items that you can find around the home to help me. Here’s a few that will help you…

A Portion of Cheese = a Matchbox

40g of cheese is the equivalent to a normal sized matchbox. That’s not actually that small when you think about it either!

Instead of getting the scales out for every time you cut a slice of cheese, pull out a matchbox to measure the size. I now have that drawn on a sheet of paper so I can quickly hold the cheese up and measure it!

A Chicken Breast = a Computer Mouse

An average sized chicken breast is the size of your computer mouse (the normal size, not those mini ones!).

This is before being cooked so it will shrink afterwards but not by too much. I’ve found that this is the perfect amount, especially when I fill half the plate up with veggies. You can add some salad dressing and other yummy treats to go with the salad and chicken (or whatever you have with the meat) as long as it’s in moderation.

A Portion of Spaghetti = a 5p Coin

This might be slightly harder for my readers in the States or outside of the UK – I think a 5p is about the size of a cent (but you will need to double check that).

Anyway, a good sized portion of spaghetti is the size of a 5p coin – when you group the spaghetti together and stand it on its end! In fact, I’ve found that I can enjoy much less than this, which is great for the diet. Remember that spaghetti and pasta expand in the water so you actually get more than you think at first.

A Potato = Your Fist

Make a fist. That is the size of one medium potato. This is the perfect size for jacket potatoes and is also great for mashed and boiled.

When making jacket potato, it is usually worse than making boiled or mashed (so you can get away with having it slightly bigger for the latter two. The jacket potato loses all its water and shrinks in the oven (or microwave, however you cook it).

There’s just four cheats to weighing your food and there are many more. I love these methods since they’re quick, easy and make sure I get the right portion sizes. Take control of your diet and get the bikini body you’ve always wanted!

Image by Apolonia/Freedigitalphotos.net


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