As always, we are providing a review to the webinar sessions that have practical skills introduced. Here is a little summary of some of the topics we spoke about.
Portion Sizes Depending on Your Goals
If portion sizes are something that you want to work on or understand better, this is the general guidelines for healthy adults. For individuals who are about 5’9’’ or shorter, you will likely need one portion of each component per meal. If you are 5’10’’ or taller, you will likely need up to two portions of each per meal to maintain your current body composition.
Measurement Protein Vegetables Carbs Fats
Hand Palm Fist Cupped hand Thumb
Plate ¼ plate ½ plate Almost ¼ plate Remining portion of plate
If you are finding the meals are not fulfilling but are still looking to maintain weight, you can consider adding more carbs and fats to the meal.
If you are looking to gain healthy weight, start by add ½ a portion of fat and carbs to your meal, then adjust based on some time with the new portions if needed.
If you are looking to lose weight but keep your meal fulfilling, remove 1/4 - ½ a portion of fat and carbs your meal, then adjust based on some time with the new portions if needed.
Food Labels
Food labels are a great way to learn and understand the food you are eating better. Outside of the ingredients lists, they provide you information about things that may be harder to tell like cholesterol, sodium, types of fats and carbohydrates, and vitamins and minerals. However, we are learning that food labels may not be as reliable as they have been portrayed to be for many different reasons. If you are using food labels to track exactly how many calories, macros, or micros you are eating, you are likely not getting the proper information. Also, foods that may appear healthy because they are endorsed by healthy looking people or organizations make them seem okay to eat very frequently.
Tips for Grocery Shopping (because we all know this is the hardest part)
Finally, we had three big tips of how to better prepare for your next shopping trip.
1. Understanding marketing tricks: marketing companies are hired to get you to buy things that you don’t want to buy. They will put endorsements on packaging to catch people’s attention, say it’s gluten-free or organic but pumped full of ingredients that will make your mood and energy drop.
2. Consider preserving groceries to make trips less often: purchasing in season foods is always the cheaper option but processes like dehydrating, freezing, or pickling/fermented foods can last months to years. Also, understanding when to transfer foods to the refrigerator can also help lessen food waste.
3. If you are looking at items on shelves, look at the very top or very bottom of the shelf. The most expensive of the items are put at eye level when there is, usually, no difference in quality.