Nutrition - Food Portions

So, continuing from yesterday's post...

When talking about the different macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat), they have an approximate amount of calories and useable energy. These figures are as follows:

There are 4 calories per gram in carbohydrates, 4 calories per gram in proteins, 9 calories per gram in fats. Although alcohol is not a nutrient, there are 7 calories per gram in it... approx!

There are portion guides that people prefer to follow to save time counting each calorie they take in. Some guidelines will give out typical portions of foods to help.

According to the guidelines, these are what are classed as typical portions:

Fruit - small, medium, large, dried and juice. Small = 2 satsumas, 2 plums, 2 kiwi, 7 strawberries, 14 cherries. Medium = 1 apple, 1 banana, 1 pear, 1 orange. Large fruit = half grapefruit, one 5cm slice of melon, 1 large slice of pineapple. Dried = about 30g, one large heaped tablespoon of raisins or sultanas, handful of banana chips. Fruit juice = 150ml glass of unsweetened juice.

Veg - green veg, salad veg, cooked veg. Green = 2 broccoli spears, 4 heaped table spoons of kale, spinach, or green beans. Salad = 3 sticks of celery, 5cm piece of cucumber, 1 medium tomato, 7 cherry tomatoes. Cooked = 3 heaped tablespoons of carrots, peas, corn or cauliflower.

Bread, rice, pasta and potatoes = 1 slice of bread, handful of rice or pasta, handful of breakfast cereal, 1 small to medium potato.

Meat, fish, eggs and beans = lean meat the size of a deck of cards, 1 large egg, side of fish the size of a standard chequebook, handful of beans, nuts or seeds.

Milk and dairy = small cup of milk, 150ml of yogurt, piece of cheese size of small matchbox.

Food and drinks high in fat and sugar = limit these foods to no more than 8% of total intake.

The next post will be about food quality etc...

A brief insight to my New Diet

Hello!

So, I stated in my previous blog that I'd talk more about the skeleton and the bones in the body... well I'm going to do that tomorrow now (busy day) but I'll leave you with a picture of my dinner tonight!

I started a new diet last week. I lost around a stone in weight over Christmas and I'm looking to put that on whilst doing some not too strenuous exercise. So far it's going well... I'll be sharing my diet when I've got my website sorted which will probably be here towards the end of the year as I'm not really up to it at the moment, plus I want to see some good results to show the rest of you too to prove the diets and workouts I follow do work!

Before Christmas, I weighed around 15 stone, I've now gone down to around 14 stone (morning weight). It's ALWAYS best to weigh yourself in the morning as your body isn't carrying any food or water weight! That's the most accurate time of day to weigh yourself, unless of course you work nights!

I'm 6ft 3 too so for someone of my height and weight, the recommended amount of calories to have on a bulk is around 3300... I've cut this down to 3000 as I'm not as active as a regular person due to my M.E.

Anyway... here's the picture...

There we go... not the best presentation but it's all about getting the calories in! What's the point in a good presentation if you're going to eat it anyway??!! ;)

It tastes good!

Chicken fillets, cherry tomatoes, brown rice, spinach, feta cheese and baked potatoes. :)



Hope you're all having a great week so far!

Barry. :)