Imagine this; you’re having a nice dinner with your friends and before digging in. You stop for a second with a realization, reach into your bag and pull out a portable food scale because you’re tracking your calories.
Sounds like your cup of tea? Probably not.
Now, weighing food can be a decent strategy for some. However, for the vast majority of people, a more balanced approach is one that you’re FAR more likely to stick to. We’re speaking from experience here.
You don’t have to struggle with the challenge of measuring your food (if you don’t like the sound of it) or risk being judged for your niche-eating habits. Just ask our coach, Luke - he will tell you that you’ll definitely get some sly remarks for it!
Ever heard of the Hand Portion Guide?
This is the simplest and most effective way that we’ve seen our Prolific clients measure their macronutrient intake. You’ll just need some good eye-hand coordination to make this work!
| Proteins | Vegetables | Carbs | Fat |
PORTIONS FOR MEN | 2x palms  | 2x fists  | 2x cupped handfuls  | 2x thumbs  |
PORTIONS FOR WOMEN | 1x palm  | 1x fist  | 1x cupped handful  | 1x thumb  |
Advantages of the Hand Portion Guide:
Accessible: No scale or app needed, just your hands.
Straightforward: No need for calculators to track your calories.
Fits your body size: Your hand is proportional to your body size.
Pretty easy, right? Now let’s put this guide to the test.
How Can This Hand Portion Guide Help My Diet?
On our What Causes Diets to Fail article (linking it here so you can check it out), structuring meals intelligently is one of our ways to avoid diet failure. An intelligently structured and portioned meal is the key to success.
But then again, how?
Case Study: Structure Louie’s Meals
I’m gonna take a page from the Hunger games movie (can’t be more fitting) and volunteer myself as a tribute:
Let’s start with facts:
I’m on intermittent fasting and I feel too hungry after every meal.
My meals usually consist of coffee (my major food group), quinoa, and chicken salads
Goal: Structure a meal that will help me feel satiated.
Let’s go ahead and put the Hand Portion Guide to the test.
Since I already have Chicken Breast on my diet, my proteins of choice are a palm of Tofu, Salmon or Chickpeas.
Admittedly, my vegetables always revolve around carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers from my salads. So a fist of green beans, cauliflower, eggplant and broccoli should do its magic.
Just like what we said in our previous article, Carbs are not the enemy. So a cupped handful not just of quinoa but sweet potatoes and maybe brown and white rice should do the job!
And lastly, the Fat source. I usually go for Salmon once in a while, but a thumb of butter or other fats would be a nice treat.
New Hand Portioned Meal Plan
Proteins Vegetables Carbs Fats
Level Up With Luke
Like anything, start with building up consistency. If you’re not 80% confident you can stick to a habit, it’s too ambitious. Pull back until it feels like something you could achieve, and something you likely will achieve.
Start with one portion guideline meal per day. Eat everything else exactly the same as you are right now.
If you have a consistency rate of 80% or above in a week, bump this up to two meals per day.
Keep replacing your meals with portion guideline meals until you’ve reached 3-4 meals per day.
Now, you can add or remove portions from this to ensure that you continue to see progress.
And, remember to pick foods you enjoy! If you enjoy pasta, throw it in once in a while. We want to enjoy our lives after all!
If you’d like a more comprehensive version of our nutrition guide, you can book in a meeting with our team here.
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