Using Food Scales

Most of us neglect the concept of portion sizes while on a diet. You have to be careful not only about what you eat but also how much you eat. Moreover, you have to balance the amount you eat at every meal.

If you should be eating a certain quantity of food in a day, then you can’t eat one large meal and then small meals for the rest of day to meet the desired quantity. You have to measure your portion sizes cautiously at every meal. Overeating in even one meal can lead to weight gain.

When you eat an extra large meal, your body doesn’t store the extra calories for future use. They are all converted into fat and stored in the body. Also, your stomach will stretch to accommodate the extra food eaten.

That’s why eating a large meal at a restaurant outside is so harmful; not only do they have very huge servings sizes but the nutritive value of the meal is also very low. In fact, restaurant servings are very high on fat content.

Hence, controlling your portion sizes is an imperative step in weight loss. If you have problems estimating your serving sizes or are not sure about them, then you should use food scales.

So what exactly are food scales and how do we use them? Anything that you use to weigh or measure your food is known as a food scale. You can use old fashioned scales to measure you food intake.

These can be metal scales with weights or scales with a digital number display. A few such modern variations of scales are also available that have technology incorporated showing the nutrition information of your food. Such scales are best used to measure meat and dairy portions; namely chicken, beef, cheese and cottage cheese.

To measure the portion size of cooked grains, fruits and vegetables you will need other measuring tools like utensils, cups, spoons etc. These are really useful for measuring liquids and semi solid foods like oils, butter, margarine, yogurt, milk and grated or sliced cheese. Cups are ideal for measuring cooked grains and vegetables or chopped raw foods. So use cups to measure your portion size of rice, pasta, fruit, salads and vegetables.