How To Know What Is An Appropriate Meal Size Is If You Have Diabetes

How do I know what an appropriate meal size is if I have diabetes?

First of all, I think that everybody with diabetes should see a nutritionist, a dietician, or somebody that works at a program, or at least read books about nutrition – because people really need to eat in a way that's healthy. A very important way to eat, and a healthy way, is to reduce portion size. And, people need to get a sense of what normal portions are. And, I think that the best way to do that is to use your hand. So, everybody should take their hand and look at their palm. And, so – guys get a slightly bigger size than a woman does. But, if you look at the palm of your hand, and trace around it, that's about the amount of protein that you should eat a meal. And, in fact, it may be the amount of protein you need in a day. And, that's about the size of a deck of cards. And, you want to look at the width of the meat or protein as being about the width of your thumb. So, if you think about what you could eat if you went out for some gigantic steak, it's going to be twice as big and much thicker. That's way too much protein, and in fact, something you may want to split with someone else because when you eat that much protein, you generally get a lot of fat, and that, together, is not so good for you. Now, your hand is also useful for a variety of other things. You want to, for instance, figure out how much is a cup of something, or a half a cup of something, so a portion size of rice is a third of a cup – that's very little, that's only about half or a third of your palm. Your palm cupped is about a cup's worth of something. So, if you want to eat a portion of mashed potatoes or cereal, it's probably going to be about the amount that fits in your palm. So, again, it's not very big compared to what we're usually used to eating. And, then, if you're going to do a tablespoon, of, say, salad dressing, a tablespoon is about the amount of the tip of your thumb. So, you want to start getting a sense of your own portions and reducing portion size.