What Is The Right Portion Size?

Preparing and serving a nutritious meal for you and your family is a great start towards a healthy weight and a healthier future. This involves getting the portions sizes right for main meals and snacks to make sure you are fuelling up with lots of variety and foods that are high in nutritional value.

Main Meals - Getting your portions right at breakfast, lunch and dinner can make a real difference to your weight and your health. Main meals are all about maximising nutrition with the right foods while keeping calories in check. Get the balance right when plating up meals at home with this simple rule of thumb:

• ½ of your plate should be vegetables (think variety and colour)
• ¼ of your plate should be good-quality carbohydrates – such as sweet potato, potato, wholegrain pasta, brown rice and quinoa.
• ¼ of your plate should be lean protein, like lean meat, poultry, eggs or legumes.

Daily Snacks - If you are hungry between main meals, choosing a nutritious snack in the right portion size that will keep you full for longer is a good idea. Choose snacks that are nutrient-rich; high in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals, and low in added sugar, salt and saturated fat. Great choices are fruit, low fat yogurt, wholegrain crackers or nuts.

One serve:

• Fruit– medium banana, apple, orange, 2 small fruits (kiwi fruits, small apricots), 30g of dried fruit (4 dried apricots, 1 ½ tablespoons of dried fruit), ½ glass of juice
• Yogurt – 200g, (choose mostly reduced fat)
• 2 large, or 4 small wholegrain crackers – enjoy with tomato, hummus, tuna, salsa or a small amount of cheese or avocado.
• A ‘handful’ of nuts (30g) – i.e. 20 almonds or peanuts, 15 cashews or 9 walnuts.

Sweet and Salty Treats - According to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, cakes, hot chips, chocolate etc. are considered “discretion” (i.e. we don’t need them) If you are trying to lose weight, you’re unlikely to be able to fit many of these foods into your lower calorie target.

One serve:

• 2-3 sweet biscuits
• 25g chocolate
• 12 fried hot chips
• 5-6 small lollies
• 1 small slice (40g) plain cake
• 30g salty crackers

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

Take control of your life, rock on!

Until next month, Evie xx

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