Hi everyone! I’m Laura and I blog at Becoming the Odd Duck. I’m a nutrition student at Texas Woman’s University who is studying to become a Registered Dietitian. I’m also an intern for Registered Dietitian Robin Plotkin, who introduced to the Healthy Steps company. I love all things food and cooking and am really excited to be here today talking about portion control and the Healthy Steps tools.
I grew up eating an extremely healthy diet, but I never learned portion control. As a kid I ate whole grains, ate fruit for dessert every night and loved vegetables. But any chance I had to eat salty snacks – like nuts, crackers or chips – I dug right in and ate more than a healthy serving’s worth.
Although I have made great strides in portion control now as an adult, I still struggle with my portions of these salty snacks. I know how to “eyeball” what a serving of chips or nuts should be, but I often find myself adding a few extra to my hand or plate. When dealing with something as caloric as a nut, adding a little extra can be equivalent to adding an extra 50-100 calories to my serving!!
One way I combat these struggles with my salty snack portions is to pre-portion before I’m ready to eat. I will pre-portion nuts, trail mix or snack crackers into one serving reusable containers and write on the container how many servings/calories are in the package. Doing this as soon as I get home from the store prevents me from sticking my hand in the package to snack as the week progresses. Plus these snacks are ready for me to grab and go!
Recently I learned about Healthy Steps and their variety of kitchen tools for people like me, who struggle with portion control for some foods. I absolutely love these tools and they will definitely be something I recommend to people in the future. Their nut bowl is the perfect solution for someone like me. I love how the top of the dish serves as a spoon so I can scoop the proper portion of nuts into my bowl. Plus, the bowl is actually 2 servings large, so it can fit my chips or crackers that take more space as well.
This nut bowl offers convenience, a proper portion, doubles as a container for my other snacks and allows me to buy in bulk and portion the foods myself. What more could I want?
How do you struggle with portion control and what solutions do you use?
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That nut bowl would be fantastic! I love pistachios, peanuts, walnuts, etc…and it’s a little difficult to measure with my food scale.
Otherwise, I’m pretty good with portions. I measure EVERYTHING–no eyeballing here! Measuring cups, spoons and the scale–all my friends!