How To Measure Food Portions With A Food Scale
30 Day Challenge: Shred Your Gut With This Simple Kitchen Exercise
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m showing you how to measure food portions with a food scale.
This simple exercise in the kitchen will help shred your gut.
Here’s the deal guys.
You may get some decent results if you’re doing everything right in the gym.
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However, let’s be real.
Your workout in the gym typically accounts for just 1 hour of your 24 hour day.
You Can’t Out Train A Bad Diet
Unfortunately if you leave the gym, and eat whatever you want the rest of the day, more than likely your poor diet will over power all your hard work in the gym.
Unless you’re a genetic freak.
Or maybe you go home and you eat fairly decent foods, but you just eat as much as you want.
In other words, you have no sense of portion control.
This is another way to ruin your progress.
Best Tip To Control Food Portion Sizes
Fortunately there is a simple exercise in the kitchen that can help you with portion control.
Today I want to teach you portion control, by measuring your food.
Hold up.
Before you stop reading because, let’s be real, ain’t nobody want to be measuring their food for the rest of their life.
It’s all good.
You don’t have to measure your food forever.
I personally don’t measure every meal anymore.
However when I first started my journey, I did measure food portions with a food scale, and it was the most rewarding education for my health, that I could have done.
How To Measure Your Food Portion Sizes
Here’s a real world example of how simple it is to measure your food portions, so you can be sure you’re eating right for your goals.
The first thing you need is a food scale.
Here is a link to a similar food scale that I use.
For today’s food measuring examples, we’re going to measure a:
- Protein: Ground turkey
- Healthy fat: Cashew nuts
- Complex carbohydrates: Sweet potatoes
- Fruit: Banana
Let’s start with the king of them all, protein.
How To Measure Food Scale: Protein
To start, take out a few freezable food storage baggies.
You will use these to freeze the meat you’re not using.
- Turn your food scale on.
- At this point, you should see that it displays 0 grams.
- You can place the food storage bag on the scale to see if it adds any weight.
- Since my food storage bags weighed 2 grams, click the button on the scale to zero it out.
- Open up the food storage bag, estimate a serving size of the ground turkey, add it to the bag, then add it to the food scale.
- The food scale showed 104 grams.
Now that you know the amount of ground turkey in grams, it’s time to find out if this is the correct food portion size, to hit your calorie and macronutrient goals.
How To Use The Meal Planner Software For Correct Food Portion Sizes
- Go to our free meal planner software to get the calories and macronutrients for this amount of ground turkey.
- In the first column, click the arrow on the drop down box to see all the foods in the database.
- Type “Ground Turkey” in the top field box, or scroll down to find ground turkey inside the drop down box.
- In the next “food weight (g)” column, type in the weight of the food in grams, then press enter.
- This will automatically calculate the number of grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and calories for the food, based on the weight of the food.
Ground Turkey Nutrition Facts:
- Weight: 104g
- Calories: 120
- Protein: 21g
- Carbohydrates: 0g
- Fat: 4g
In this example, 104 grams of ground turkey was calculated to be 21g of protein, 0g of carbohydrates, 4g of fat, for a total of 120 calories.
Now you know exactly how many calories from protein, carbohydrates, and fats you are getting with that quantity of 104g of ground turkey, after you cook it.
If that is the amount of protein you want, based on your macronutrient goals, put that storage bag of ground turkey in the freezer.
Or you can add it to the fridge, then cook that amount at night for dinner.
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If these calories and macronutrients are too low for your goals, you can add a little bit more ground turkey to the storage bag, then add that new weight to the meal planner software.
Repeat this process until you hit your desired calorie and macronutrient numbers.
Let’s move on to nuts.
How To Measure Food Scale: Fat
Nuts are a high calorie dense food, that are a very healthy source of fat.
However, some people over do it, because they don’t know the healthy portion sizes of nuts.
The typical serving size is a tablespoon of nuts.
In the comments below, let me know how many calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein you think this tablespoon/small handful of cashews is?
Take a guess based on your own knowledge.
- To start, remove the cashews from the bowl or the packaging.
- Put the bowl or packaging on top of the food scale, then hold the button to zero it out.
- Put the small handful of cashews into the bowl on the food scale.
- The food scale showed 15g.
How To Use The Meal Planner Software For Correct Food Portion Sizes
- Go to our free meal planner software to get the calories and macronutrients for this amount of cashews.
- In the first column field that shows “Select a fat source..”, click the arrow on the drop down box to see all the foods in the database.
- Type “Cashew” in the top field box, or scroll down to find cashew inside the drop down box.
- In the next “food weight (g)” column, type in the weight of the food in grams, then press enter.
- This will automatically calculate the number of grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and calories for the food, based on the weight of the food.
Cashew Nutrition Facts:
- Weight: 15g
- Calories: 87
- Protein: 3g
- Carbohydrates: 3g
- Fat: 7g
Let’s move on to measuring a banana.
How To Measure Food Scale: Fruit
Let’s find out how big a banana is.
In the comments below, let me know how many calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein you think this banana is?
- Take the banana peel off.
- Put the banana on top of the food scale.
- The food scale showed 131g.
Let’s go find out how much 131 grams of banana is in calories, carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
How To Use The Meal Planner Software For Correct Food Portion Sizes
- Go back to our free meal planner software.
- In the first column field that shows “Select a carbohydrate source..”, click the arrow on the drop down box to see all the foods in the database.
- Type “Banana” in the top field box, or scroll down to find banana inside the drop down box.
- In the next “food weight (g)” column, type in the weight of the food in grams, then press enter.
- This will automatically calculate the number of grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and calories for the food, based on the weight of the food.
Banana Nutrition Facts:
- Weight: 131g
- Calories: 124
- Protein: 1g
- Carbohydrates: 30g
- Fat: 0g
How To Measure Food Scale: Sweet Potato
Last, but certainly not least, the one that most people overdo it on, carbohydrates.
Let’s measure these two small sweet potatoes that fit in the palm of my hand.
This is probably what you would see on your plate for a serving size.
How many calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein would you guess this is?
Put your answers in the comment section below.
You may be surprised.
- Before adding the sweet potatoes, make sure the scale is zeroed out.
- Add the sweet potatoes on top of the food scale.
- The food scale showed 230g.
How To Use The Meal Planner Software For Correct Food Portion Sizes
- Go back to our free meal planner software.
- In the first column field that shows “Select a carbohydrate source..”, click the arrow on the drop down box to see all the foods in the database.
- Type “Sweet Potato” in the top field box, or scroll down to find sweet potato inside the drop down box.
- In the next “food weight (g)” column, type in the weight of the food in grams, then press enter.
- This will automatically calculate the number of grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and calories for the food, based on the weight of the food.
Sweet Potato Nutrition Facts:
- Weight: 230g
- Calories: 244
- Protein: 3g
- Carbohydrates: 58g
- Fat: 0g
Bottom Line: How To Measure Food Portions With A Food Scale
That was how you measure food using a scale.
This is your simple exercise in the kitchen to shred your gut.
When you combine the food scale with our meal planner software, it breaks the nutrition facts down, and tells you exactly how many calories each food contains in carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
You can now ensure you’re eating the correct portion sizes, based on your requirements to hit your daily calorie and macronutrient goals.
A lot of people ask, how do I get enough protein?
Well as you saw in the protein example, I showed you a visual example of how a small quantity of ground turkey protein (104 grams) was still high in protein.
I bet it was more protein than you were thinking it would be.
When it comes to carbohydrates, you saw how the calories and carbohydrates in sweet potatoes add up quickly.
You also saw how the fats can add up quickly if you’re not aware of portion sizes.
This is why in the beginning of your journey, measuring your food is such an important part of your nutrition education.
Take The 30 Day Food Scale Challenge
Commit the next 30 days to measuring your food, so you can get a better understanding of not only the portion sizes your body requires, but you’ll also the make up of those calories.
In other words, the portion of calories coming from:
- Protein
- Fat
- Carbohydrates
After 30 days, you should have a much better understanding of food portions.
Once you do, you can then simply eyeball your food portions for everyday living, rather than being a slave to the scale.
Put in the short term work up front, and enjoy the long term benefits of Living Lean.
Remember, knowledge is important, but execution equals results.
I love you guys and keep Living Lean.
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Questions For You:
- How many calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein you think this in the ground turkey, cashews, banana, and sweet potato examples?
- Do you currently measure your food portions, or have you measured your food portions in the past?
- What kind of results did you get from doing it?
Be sure to share your answers in the comment section below.
Check out our free workout videos here.
Check out my free recipe cooking videos here.
Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
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