Portion Distortion

Getting the appropriate number of calories to maintain a healthy weight comes down to controlling portion size. Accurately estimating portion sizes in our diet can be tricky. Restaurant portion s are increasingly oversizes compared to what we should be eating at home even the plates themselves have actually grown in recent years.

The average 30-year-old woman with a sedentary lifestyle (desk job) needs to consume approximately 1800 calories a day to maintain a healthy weight. Ideally that translates into a daily consumption of 5 fruit and vegetable servings, 6 servings of grain, 5 ounces of meat or beans and 3 servings of non-fat dairy foods. The challenge in designing a diet comes down to determining the calorie requirement and translating it into menu selection with proper portion sizes.