The single biggest reason people fail to lose weight on the keto diet is because they guess their portion sizes. It’s super important to remember the first rule of keto eating: always weigh your food.
And I mean ALWAYS.
You may think you’ve got a good idea about the carb values of the foods you plan on eating, but the devil is in the portion size that you are thinking of enjoying.
What you may consider as a single portion could easily equal two or more portions on a list of nutritional values.
Under estimating how much you’re eating is much more simple than you’d think, and it can completely derail your chances of success on the keto diet.
The tablespoon test.
Serve yourself a tablespoon of a food you plan on eating. Do it just by looking at the amount you have on the spoon.
For example guess a tablespoon of grated cheese or almond flour. Once you have your spoon piled to about the right amount, weigh it on an electronic kitchen scale.
If you’re like most people, you will see that your idea of a tablespoon of a food can be up to double the weight of what is shown as a tablespoon in the food chart you’re following.
Very often the tablespoon weight you see suggested is much less than you think.
For example a tablespoon of almond flour is listed as containing:
- Carbs 1g
- Fiber 0g
- Sugar 0g
- Fat 3g
- Protein 1g
The official exchange rate for 1 tablespoon of food into grams is 1 tablespoon = 15g or half an oz.
When I guessed a tablespoon of almond flour using a regular tablespoon, it weighed in at 25g/ 8.8 oz, which was very nearly double.
This would mean an extra carb in this tiny amount. When scaled up to a recipe for something such as bread it would make enough difference to exceed the normal keto limit of 20g net carbs per day.
Some foods are heavy, and a portion is less than you think
Some foods are heavy, and you’ll be surprised by how tiny a portion of that food will look.
A good example is cheese. A 50g/1.8 oz serving is a very small piece of cheese. If you’re like most people, you’d normally have much more than that even as a snack.
Obviously, with a food such as cheese, the problem isn’t too great as cheese is very low in carbs, but for other foods such as nuts or vegetables, the extra carbs will soon add up.
Always weigh your food, especially when you’re new to keto eating
It might sound like a chore, but it will make the difference between meeting your weight loss and health goals or not.
Many times when someone complains that they are on the keto diet but have not lost weight, guessing portion sizes is the reason that they’re not seeing the success that they should.
When it’s a food that you frequently eat, there will come a time when you can be reasonably confident that you can eye ball your portion and know if it’s right or not.
However, this isn’t going to be the case for you straight away. The keto diet does require some effort to get right, and this is one area that you can make sure you’re not spoiling your chances of success.
What type of scales are best?
Most electronic kitchen scales are accurant, and you could choose one more or less based on looks alone.
However, if you’re wanting to weigh your food and know how many carbs, protein and fat it contains, then you’ll need one of the newer smart scales.
These will completely take the guess work out of how much of a food you can eat and stay within your macro allowance for the day.
The best scales will also track your carb, fat and protein intake for the day, making it easier than ever to do the keto diet correctly.
Etekcity Smart Food Nutrition Scale, Digital Grams and Oz for Cooking, Baking, and Weight Loss, Christmas Gift for Holiday Meal Prep, Large, Stainless Steel
This is an amazing tool for any keto dieter.
While it’s not the cheapest scale we’ve seen, it’s a great addition to any kitchen, and comes in at less than you’d think for a scale that can do so many things.
This scale will Track your ketomacros: set your health goal of Keta, diet, or balanced, and make progress for a better living. Vesync helps you to monitor portion intake, calculate calorie, track square meals, and store nutritional Log
Other scales available
There are other options available, and although I know and recommend the Mackie Food Scale, you may want to take a look at the other choices too.
Whichever scale you want to use, you will be ensuring that all your efforts to follow the health keto diet are not going to be wasted.
It takes just a few seconds to weigh your food properly, and by doing so you’ll be making sure that you don’t fall into the biggest trap that catches out keto eaters.
As long as you’re not guessing portion sizes, the keto diet is guaranteed to get you to all your weight loss goals in the shortest possible time.
These articles may also interest you:
How to work out your own carb limit for ketosis
The keto diet plan: the way to a healthier life
Note: This article contains affiliate links.
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