One of the things we noted on many of your bucket lists for 2015 was portion control. How much is enough?……..it’s really difficult to gage!
Serving sizes have gone up drastically in the last 20 years, particularly on packed food (think of the old polystyrene coffee cups compared to the extra large, tall, grande latte we slug down these days. Or the tiny choc chip cookies mum made compared to the over indulgent cookies the size of bread and butter plates you currently see in cafes). Everywhere we turn there are supersize, upsize, megasize and don’t get me started on the “serve yourself and come back for seconds buffet”!
Even if we’re eating a well balanced nutritious diet full of whole foods, it’s hard to judge how much we should be consuming. After all it’s calories in versus calories out and we need to find the right balance on a personal level.
I came across these helpful products at a professional development day I attended last year on “Managing a Healthy Weight”. The sports dietician who ran the session highly recommended this as a tool to keep our portions in check. It comes in the form of a plate and bowl that have the recommend serving sizes of our macronutrients (carbs, protein and fat) and the serving sizes we should be aiming for.
It gives portion sizes for men and women who want to maintain weight as well as portion sizes for those wanting to drop weight.
All you need to do is ditch the fancy crockery for a few weeks and replace it with these melamine plates while you adapt to how much the recommended serving size is for your lifestyle. We have purchased some plates and bowls from the portion perfection range and will have them at bootcamp this week. We have four of each, plates are $14 and the bowls $7, but we can order more in bulk if required. Or you can order them individually, visit the website https://www.greatideas.net.au/portion-perfection/men.html Please let us know if you would like one to help you keep your portions in check.
BLUEBERRY BANANA BREAD
Moving on to the Blueberry Banana Bread recipe I created yesterday. Now as you may know I’m not one for following recipes, I just threw this together without measuring anything with a bunch of ingredients I grabbed from the pantry. The measurements are a guide only, add/take-away to get the right consistency for the perfect mixture…
2 ripe mashed bananas, 2 pots of unsweetened apple puree, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup Chobani greek yoghurt, 3 Tablespoons coconut oil and 2 Tablespoons of rice malt syrup melted in the microwave, 1 1/2 -2 cups of wholemeal SR flour, 1 tspoon of baking powder, 1 cup of crushed walnuts, 1/2 a cup of LOCALLY SOURCED blueberries and a handful of slivered almonds for the top.
Mix all the wet ingredients first then add the flour and baking powder stir until well combined, mix through walnuts and blueberries. Line a slice tin with baking paper and spray with oil, pour in mixture and sprinkle with almonds. Bake at 165 for 30-35 mins. 
As you can see I had a bit of a bake-off yesterday. The recipes for the protein balls and jaffa muffins are under the recipe tab. Hey, watch your portions!