New portion size guidance - what do you think?

[TheFifthKey]

www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/14/nutritionists-launch-portion-size-guide-to-tackle-overeating

This is roughly in line with the portion sizes I've been eating recently in a drive to be healthier - BUT I have been often pretty hungry (not starving, just used to a greater amount of food and having to reset my norms) and it's very very hard to eat out at all and follow these guidelines. I know reading threads on here, for example, many people think 500g of mince will only serve two people in bolognese.

That article quotes a 2000 cal a day allowance for women which drives me mad.
I'm 5,4, sedentary and in my late 40's. My maintenance calories are about 1450 a day. To lose I have to eat 1200 and you get people telling you that's a starvation diet when it's only 250 cal a day deficit.

I ate 2000 for years and couldn't figure out why I was putting on weight until I found a proper tdee calculator.

I think this generic 2000 a day for women message is massively harmful and a huge part of the problem.

I agree, my optimal calories are about the same as yours. It's not so bad when you cook for yourself etc but it really does make buying lunch or eating out very difficult unless you want the rest of your day to be sparse food-wise. It also makes you realise exactly how many calories are in snacks - for example, there were biscuits in the staffroom just now and in order to stay in my allowance (I'm doing MFP to be more mindful about my eating) I could only have 1 - how often do we see here people eating a whole pack at a time? Of course everyone can make their own choices but the normalisation of big portions/large calorie allowances makes it quite hard.

But you're not really an average woman Epony, especially if you are slim. My maintenance calories are over 2000 per day, as I'm taller, probably heavier and quite, but not ridiculously, active.

The 2000 will probably fine for people of average height and average actvity levels, so taller and more active than you. But yes people have to check their individual TDEE using one of the many online calculators available.

It's helpful, I think. I agree it's impossible to follow when eating out, but does that matter unless you go out every night? if you stuck to this every meal then just ate whatever for say one meal per week, this would still be a good diet.

I’m above average height, size 16 and weigh nearly 12 stone. I need 1700 calories to maintain my weight. If I was average height and weight that would drop to 1600 calories. Suggesting that women need 2000 calories is just a recipe for making us fat.

I think reading that article that's really fine, portion-size-wise. I lovely pasta, and can (and do!) eat loads more than that, but if you read the 'suggested day' meal plan, it seems quite generous to me. I would not eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner of the sizes mentioned, and all the snacks - a baked potato with a tin of tuna mayo and then spag bol later it would be too much for me. But I would prefer to eat a larger meal and one or two much smaller ones, so I'd have more pasta and either a late breakfast/brunch or a much lighter lunch.

People have stopped listening to their own hunger, that's a lot of the problem.

I'm another one who would quickly become very fat if I ate 2000 a day. I maintain on 1200 and really struggle to lose at all since I became too arthritic to run anymore. Actually, even when I was doing marathon training 15 years ago, I would still pile pounds on if I went close to 2000.

Well I'm above average height, am a size 16 and weigh 14 stone. Apparently my maintenance calories are 2300, so I just averaged your 1700 out to 2000, Cosmic.

Obviously I've not been getting it quite right, but some women just do need more. Especially if they're more active.

I'm not convinced by all the low fat options in that advice. I'm always very dubious about foods that have been messed about with.

I think portion size is definitely one of my issues. Clearer guidance around this can only be helpful I think.

Something simple and obvious I have found is just using smaller plates and bowls for my meals!

Finally, some good old common sense. I've been weighing out pasta and rice for years now and lost weight at a nice steady pace without ever feeling really hungry.

When my late DH had heart bypass surgery, we were advised by rehab to buy old dinner plates from charity shops, so much smaller than the new-style ones and a valuable visual adjustment to portion control.

Pub and restaurant meals are enormous and that gives people a false idea of a normal portion size
Most people eat far too much.

This is such an interesting thread!! I have been using MFP to track my calories for the past few years so pretty spot on about portion sizes etc but these latest guidelines do make me smile. Went into a shop yesterday for some potatoes - the ones labelled 'baking potatoes' were HUGE!! Must have been 12-14oz each. The ones I use are 7-8oz which always used to be a normal portion. We seem to have lost our perception of what is normal!

I am 5ft 9" tall, fairly muscular and work out every weekday, burning 5-700 calories according to my heart rate monitor (MyZone). My aim is to consume 1700 calories a day but the first 10 days of this year I averaged 1900. I think my maintenance calories are around 1800 - must check!

Doesn't always work. I'm a UK size 12/14 and 159cm tall. I used to have bmi of 48, and it's now 30 (was as low as 28).

I've been eating between 1200-1300 cals a day, yet I cannot lose weight unless I keep to 1000 cals/day.

Originally, I saw a dietician for about a year to help me lose the weight and she told me that I'd messed my metabolism up so much by all the years of dangerous/fad diets I'd done that I'd never be able to eat normally and would have to keep to about 1000cals/day to maintain my weight (this was about 7 years ago).

She's not wrong either because over the last few years of eating around 1200-1300 cals/day I've gained about 2 stone.

I've just started losing it again over the last 5 months, but it's very slow (about 1kg/ month), and I'm having to stick to 1000cals/day, despite my TDEE being 1677 and my BMR being 1398. Even the lowest TDEE I've found still says I need 1541cals with BMR of 1401cals to maintain my weight.

Tbf, though, one diet I tried resulted in me needing emergency surgery to fix the problems it caused.

That's true about portion sizes though. Many people have no idea, and are pretty shocked, or disbelieving, when they find out.

I'm glad to see my portions are in line with what they suggest.

I've always followed the portion sizes that I remember from SW or WW (forget which), and that suggested a portion of pasta is between 55g, 65g, and 75g depending whether you want a small, medium or large portion.
I generally stick to the middle figure, so will use 260g dried weight for 4ppl.
I already use small plates, but I'm pretty sedentary due to ill health.

The protein suggestion of half the size of your hands seems a bit low, a chicken breast or fish fillet would generally be about hand sized and I wouldn't think to half it.

But until everyone became obsessed with protein in favour of carbs, people used to eat far less meat, because a meat heavy diet was simply unaffordable to many people.

What people these days think of as a standard portion, eg a whole chicken breast per person, provides a lot more protein than most people need to eat.

'Carbs' in the form of bread and pasta also contain a good amount of protein, so there simply is no need to add a ton of meat or other sources of protein.
As for eating a whole chicken breast, my Mum used to carve the whole chicken up and everyone used to get a few slices. No one had a leg or breast to themselves and I thought it was really weird when I went to a restaurant and was presented with a quarter of a chicken. I didn't know what to do with it.

feelingverylazytoday Yes... it was always a couple of slices when we were kids - I'd forgotten that. When did the quarter of a chicken on your plate thing creep in?

Yes 2000 cals is way too much for some . As any dietitian will tell you if you’re fat then you’re taking in more energy then you burn .

The calorie guides have long been criticised- they were invented when people walked more and did more manual labour- and housework.

I am 5 3" and weigh around 7 s 8. I am not underweight.

I need far less than 2K cals normally.

The portion sizes are normal in my experience- too many people have been eating too much it's become normalised.

It's not new news anyway- it's been around for a few years that carbs should be no bigger than your fist.

@BarbaraOfseville- she is very much the average woman! The average height of a UK woman is 5 4" (maybe 5 5" more recently but was always 5 4" for a long time.

many people think 500g of mince will only serve two people in bolognese

Really?! I honestly find that really shocking!

I'm 65. When I started cooking 2oz pasta or rice and 4oz meat were the normal portions.

I was reading about this too and found it very interesting. I'm 5ft2 and my ideal weight is apparently 110lbs for my height. With a TDEE of 1650 cals. Currently I weigh 227lbs and my TDEE is 2348 cals. So there is a 698 difference daily which has been eye opening for me as that is a meals worth per day basically!

I need to start taking these portions into consideration and also eating at my ideal weight TDEE. They say the hardest part is not losing the weight but maintaining it. It's no wonder when our view of portion sizes is so skewed and the calories we should be eating are nowhere near the guidance of 2000 cals for the average person.

When we think we are being good as we're not eating 'junk', we still are eating a massive surplus of cals with these large portions that have become the norm!