Meal Prep 101: Mastering Portion Sizes - The Girl on Bloor (2024)

Learn how to properly portion out your meals for a healthier and more balanced diet with these tips and tricks for meal prep.

Understanding Recommended Serving Sizes

You've made a delicious recipe – now it's time to decide how much of it you're going to eat! Portion sizes are really important when it comes to meal prepping. You want to make sure you're getting enough protein and nutrients to sustain you throughout the day, without going overboard on the calories. Most dishes contain recommended serving sizes that you can follow. For example, all of my recipes contain serving sizes at the top of the recipe card. Divide the total amount of food you have into those servings, and you'll have a recommended serving size!

If you're following a more specific meal plan or you just want to be more cognizant about how much food you eat, I put together this guide on meal prep portions. Keep in mind that a lot of this will come down to trial and error as you figure out what works best for your lifestyle and fitness goals.

Using Measuring Tools For Accurate Portions

First things first – you want to stock up on the right tools for figuring out portion sizes for different ingredients. You can eyeball it, but using a kitchen scale or a measuring cup is your best bet for ensuring you're getting the right portion size. A kitchen scale can be used for things like protein, while measuring cups are great for whole grains, beans/lentils and nuts.

Calculating Portion Sizes Based On Individual Needs

When you're determining the portion size that's right for you, there are a few things to keep in mind including lifestyle, fitness level, current weight, gender, height and more. Remember that we are not doctors and this post should not be considered medical advice, but more some general guidelines on portion sizes that you can use as a starting off point when calculating what's right for you. You can read more about meal prepping for weight lost in my blog post here.

One of the benefits of meal prepping is that is helps you develop a healthy lifestyle, but you also need to take into consideration a number of factors like your exercise regimen, your height and weight, your fitness goals, your dietary restrictions and so one.

Portioning Out Different Food Groups

You can use the below as a general guideline on portion sizes for different foods then divide them amongst your meal prep containers:

• Beans: About 3 heaping tablespoons of beans such as black beans, kidney beans or chickpeas.
• Fish: One hand-sized piece of fresh fish like salmon or white fish, or a small tin of canned tuna.
• Eggs: Two eggs
• Meat: One hand-sized piece of boneless skinless chicken breast, about 1/3 cup of ground beef, 1/2 cup of ground turkey
• Plant-based protein: One hand-sized piece of tofu, two spoonfuls of peanut butter, one handful of unsalted nuts (like cashews, almonds, pecans or pistachios), one spoonful of seeds like chia seeds or pumpkin seeds.
• Cheese: One finger length of lower-fat cheese like Brie or Camembert, two spoonfuls of low-fat cream cheese, one spoonful of regular cream cheese, three spoonfuls of cottage cheese.
• Dairy: One small glass (approx. 200 ML) of skim milk or plant-based milk, four spoonfuls of yogurt
• Fruit: One handful of grapes, two handfuls of berries, two handfuls of cherries, one banana, one apple, one heaping spoonful of dried fruits like apricots
• Grains and pasta: Two heaping spoonfuls of rice, two heaping spoonfuls of couscous, two heaping spoonfuls of cooked pasta, half a package of egg noodles or ramen, one spoonful of granola, three spoonfuls of oatmeal
• Vegetables: Eight broccoli florets, three spoonfuls of root veggies like carrots or beets, three spoonfuls of peas, two handfuls of salad (including kale or spinach), one fist-sized sweet potato, half an avocado, one tomato, four spoonfuls of green beans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Tips For Planning And Prepping Meals In Advance

Here are a few of my top tips for meal planning:

• Make a weekly meal plan: First things first – make your weekly meal plan of recipes you're going to make. You can use my free printable weekly meal planner template or make your own. This will help you determine what you're going to make and what ingredients you need.
• Develop a routine: Set aside a specific day when you do your meal prep, whether that be the weekend or a weekday. This will help you develop a routine for prepping your meals.
• Use the right containers: These bento box containers are great for portion control, as they container three different compartments. Use the bigger compartment for your fruits and veggies, one of the smaller compartments for your protein and the other compartment for your grains or starchy veggies.

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