Portion Sizes

Imagine your dinner plate last night. Was half of your plate full of vegetables, while the other half was split evenly between carbs and proteins? If so, you built a healthy plate like the one on this page!

The trick is to decide what counts as a veggie, carb and protein. Sometimes it's not as easy as you think. That's why it's so important to count carbs and understand the proper portion sizes for foods you eat.

You might have heard or read things like a "serving size of meat is 3 oz." What exactly does that mean? It means that a balanced meal includes about 3 oz. of meat. Since most people don't carry a scale on them, the easiest way to know what 3 oz of meat looks like is to compare it to something else.

Here are some easy serving size comparisons to remember:

• 1 oz. cheese - Four dice
• 1/2 cup rice - Half a baseball
• 1 4 oz. bagel - A hockey puck
• 3 oz. of meat - A deck of cards
• 2 tbsp. of peanut butter - A ping-pong ball
• 1 cup pasta - A tennis ball