Portion sizes

Controlling your portion sizes is key to keeping yourself healthy as eating too much or too little of any of the food groups can be bad for your health.

Different people require different portion sizes of the major food groups and it depends on a variety of factors such as age, gender and how active you are. If you are trying to lose weight, then portion control becomes even more important and you will need to eat smaller or fewer portions than is recommended.

A good practice to get into is weighing your food, particularly for foods such as cereals, pasta and rice as it is very easy to underestimate your portion size.

If it is difficult to weigh foods, then aim for a quarter of your plate to be carbohydrates, the second quarter to be filled with protein foods and the remaining half with plenty of cooked vegetables or fresh salads.

Bulking out your meals by increasing the number of vegetables you eat is a good strategy as they are full of vitamins, minerals and fibre which will keep you feeling fuller for longer.

Have a look at the savings you can make with the calories by reducing your portion sizes of the foods below:

What counts as a portion?

Sometimes it can be difficult to know what a portion of each type of food is. As a rough guide a portion is:

• a fist size of potatoes, bread, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates
• a palm size of meat/fish or poultry
• two handfuls of vegetables or salad
• a cupped-handful of fruit
• top of your thumb size of oil or fat spread

The British Heart Foundation has produced a visual resource outlining portions sizes for the different food groups using your hand.

Another helpful resource is the Carbs & Cals app which provides visual guides for working out portion sizes of a huge range of foods.