How many hours have you spent using portion control, weighing out all your food for the week, or plugging your meals into a macro-counter app to ensure you’re eating the right amount of food to obtain your goals? Doing so can be tedious, and some studies have shown that these methods are often inaccurate.
Luckily, there’s a better tool use portion control at your disposal—your hand. But just how accurate is that?
John Berardi, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., founder of the world’s largest nutrition coaching company, Precision Nutrition, recently spoke about the method’s benefits on an episode of the M&F podcast, M&F Reps.
How does he know this? Brian St. Pierre, director of performance nutrition at Precision Nutrition, compared calorie approximations from a tracker with the palm-based approximation for about 25 clients and found that you could get nearly the exact same results with both methods.
This method is customizable depending on your goals— either by adding or removing one-half portion of carbs or fats from a few meals each day.
The hand is a great tool, not only because it’s always with you but also because each one is suited to the individual. Bigger people have bigger hands, so their portions will be suited toward them. Same with smaller people.
Here’s a breakdown of how you can use your hand to keep your diet on track:
| How to Count Macronutrients With Your Hand | ||
| Directions: Use this guide to determine your portions at each meal.* | ||
| Macronutrient | Male Portion | Female Portion |
| Protein | 2 palm-size portions | 1 palm-size portion |
| Carbs | 2 cupped-hand-size portions | 1 cupped-hand-size portion |
| Fats | 2 thumb-size portions | 1 thumb-size portion |
| Fruits & Vegetables | 2 fist-size portions | 1 fist-size portion |
| *For active men and women who eat four times per day. | ||