What portion sizes should I eat?

Questions around portion sizes and building a healthy plate are questions I get asked regularly in clinic and at company talks so I hope you will find the following useful as you choose and prepare meals.

How much we should be eating is very individual, varying from person to person, and depends on many factors including our age, our lifestyle, how hungry we are, what food we are eating, how much exercise we are doing, and how we are feeling, but a good way to guide portions if you are not sure is by using your hands as a guide.

Often single foods don’t just contain one nutrient - a single food can encompass multiple categories. For example, a salmon fillet contains both protein and healthy omega 3 fats (as well as a number of other nutrients like vitamins and minerals), and nuts can be both a protein and a healthy fat. If we are cooking or purchasing foods we should be mindful of where the nutrients are coming from and add to the dish or meal where we see gaps. For example, a meal at a restaurant might come with protein such as fish, and a carbohydrate (potato) but be missing vegetables, which can be simply rectified by ordering a side dish of vegetables to come with the meal. Or a vegetable soup might contain carbohydrates (potatoes), various vegetables and some healthy fats (olive oil), but may be lacking in protein, and this can be added in (nuts, seeds, leftover chicken, or cooked green lentils or chickpeas.)

I hope this infographic below will be helpful to you and help you build balanced, nutritious, tasty meals. This guide need not be ridged, but should be used as just that, a guide, that can be useful when putting meals together, without a recipe, to help us get all the components we need to nourish us, satisfy us, and keep us full until our next meal.

If you need help with you IBD or digestive health and you are not sure where to begin please get in touch and we can arrange a free call to chat about you and how I can help you.

I have also written a free e-book to help you find a way forward for your everyday life with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Whether you are right at the beginning of your journey with IBD or have been living with your condition for years and feel like you have tried almost everything, there are things you can do everyday, beyond the medication you are taking, to help you take back control.