CrossFit South Bend

Today we are going to try to answer the question, how much food should you eat? A couple of things to say right up front. This is so hyper contextual. It’s so contextual. Is a person someone who’s 400 pounds who’s trying to stop being diabetic and they’re primarily sedentary versus a high level CrossFit games athlete? It’s going to be super contextual, but what we’re going to try to lay out in this video is just base guidelines. Typically, what we’ll say to you here is if these base things aren’t even in place then you shouldn’t even be worried about things like Keto, and a whole bunch of different macro splits. Those can be tremendously useful in certain context, but you need this first base level to even venture into those areas.

First I’m gonna talk about kind of a visual method for measuring your food. Then I’ll talk about more specific amounts that could be helpful. A visual method that different folks like Precision Nutrition or the Whole 30 mention is using your hand. For protein, they typically say about a palm size. Why is that good? Well because to the extent that someone’s palm is smaller, that’s gonna mean a smaller chunk of protein, and if their palm is a lot bigger that’s going to be a bigger chunk of protein, which should correspond to their body size. You put that palm sized protein on your plate, and then you fill the rest of your plate with vegetables. That’s a pretty good start. Again, hyper contextual. Can change things up, but that’s a good place to start.

In terms of fats at each meal, if you are going to oils about a thumb size. That’s going to correspond to roughly a tablespoon of fat to either cook with your veggies or to cook with your meat, or to drizzle over your salad. Then for things like fruit typically, one handful like an apple or blueberries. The same thing with nuts and seeds. That isn’t perfect. That isn’t the end all be all. That isn’t the only thing to pay attention to, but that’s a really good place to start.

If you’re not having meals with quality protein, veggies, and healthy fat as your foundation, and maybe some fruits, nuts, and seeds, herbs, and spices, as extra pieces then you don’t need to be worried about all this other crazy stuff. You don’t need to be worried about Weight Watchers points. You don’t need to worry about calories. You don’t need to worry about all of these different macro splits. Okay. That’s a good visual way to help, but sometimes people ask, what about actual amounts? Can we give you guys some amounts?

Here are some amounts that I like to tell people. For protein in general, if we’re talking about a slab of protein like a filet of salmon, or a chicken breast, or a steak, or something like that, we’re talking somewhere between a quarter pound and a half pound, so four ounces to eight ounces. Sure, someone’s working out more you can go all the way up to 12 ounces or even 16 ounces, but for most people, men and women, somewhere between four to eight ounces at a meal is going to be a really good place to start.

Vegetables, so non starchy vegetables, I like that rule of basically filling the rest of your plate. I wouldn’t restrict non starchy vegetables. If anything, I would say a bare minimum that we like is one non starchy vegetable per meal. Meaning like one thing like kale, or cucumber, or broccoli, or cabbage, at each meal. Then in terms of your starchy vegetables, things like, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, plantains, butternut squash. Somewhere between 50 and 150 grams is a good place to start people off. How do you figure out what that is? Well, a regular size white potato or sweet potato is going to be somewhere around 40 to 50 grams. That’s a good place to start.

Then healthy fats, again hyper contextual, gonna depend on who you are, but I would say somewhere in the realm of one to two tablespoons per meal where you’re either cooking your meat with that, or cooking your veggies, or drizzling some oil on your salad, that usually does the trick. Hopefully, that gives you a sense of some good amounts to have with your meal. Again, we think of it in terms of what we sometimes refer to as, the twenty mile march. We want to get them to begin with this way of eating first where they even have these quantities that we just mentioned in place. Then we can move on to things like Keto, or more advanced macros, and so on, and so forth.

Practical take aways from this video, guys. Number one above all else as we’ve said in every other single video we’ve ever done, food quality first and foremost. Got that in place? Okay. Well let’s start worrying about that food quantity. That’s all the stuff I talked about today. Four to eight ounces of protein at a meal, roughly palm size. The rest of our plate with veggies. One non starchy vegetable at a meal, and 50 to 150 grams of starchy vegetables per day. Then one to two tablespoons of healthy fat at each meal. All right guys, hopefully that gives you some direction. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.