How To Prep And Portion Your Food Using A Food Scale
How to measure portion sizes properly
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m showing you how to prep and portion your food using a food scale.
I just got back from the grocery store, and chicken was on sale, so I stocked up.
Score.
When good food, like chicken breasts, go on sale, you should be buying in bulk too.
Now, since I purchased all this chicken in bulk, the question is, what are we going to do with it?
Well, since you have asked for it multiple times, on this edition of Freestyle Friday, I finally caved in, and am sharing how to prep and portion your food.
Food prep and portion sizes is so important in the beginning
The habit of meal prepping and the skill of knowing your portion sizes, is crucial in the beginning stages of Living Lean.
Why you ask?
Because we’re human.
When we don’t have food available, or planned out, we’ll always go for the quick solution.
In most cases, this quick solution is refined junk food.
I’m certainly guilty of it, and I’m 99% sure you are too.
But not anymore.
By following these food prep and portioning steps, you’ll always be prepared with healthy, muscle building, and fat burning foods.
Lets kick it off
So when you buy in bulk, the best thing to do is portion it out, then store it in the freezer.
By storing the portioned chicken, or any other perishable foods high in protein, in the freezer, it makes the food prep process much more efficient, as you can simply use a single serving size whenever you need it.
You can do this by simply cutting up the chicken into single serving portion sizes, or if you have a family, portion out a family size.
Then store the portioned chicken breasts in the freezer.
When you need to add chicken to a recipe, simply grab it from the freezer, defrost it, then you’re ready to prepare the meal, with properly portioned serving sizes.
So if you’re still with me, here’s how to prep and portion your food using a food scale.
Here’s all you need to properly portion and store your food:
- plastic storage freezer bags
- a food scale
- a plate to put the food on to weigh
- cutting board
- a knife
- chicken breast
Instructions on how to portion your food:
- Pick one chicken breast from the package, and repeat the following process for every piece of chicken.
- Portion out the chicken by adding a plate on top of the food scale. Since the plate adds weight to the food scale, zero out the scale, before adding the chicken. This will re-program the food scale back to zero, therefore only providing a weight number for the chicken.
- Add a piece of chicken to the plate to get a weight measurement. For me, I aim to get 155g of chicken breast per serving. That’s going to provide me with roughly 40g of protein, which matches my protein intake goal for meals.
- Keep playing around with adding and removing different amounts of chicken to the plate, until you hit your serving size goal. In my case, if I originally cut a piece of chicken that is 112g, I’d keep that on the plate, then I’d cut a smaller piece of chicken, with the goal of adding the additional 43g of chicken that is required to hit my 155g serving size goal.
- Once you find the right portion size for your goals, add that portion of chicken to your plastic storage freezer bag, and seal it. You’ve just portioned out your first serving of chicken, that you can store in the freezer, then when needed, take it out, defrost it, and cook it.
- Complete that process for the rest of the chicken.
- If you’re using bigger plastic storage freezer bags, rather than just adding one serving of chicken, add multiple servings, but leave a crease between the portions and fold it over so you have one serving on the bottom and one serving on top. This ensures the servings of chicken are separated. That way, when they are in the freezer, the two portions won’t get frozen together.
- Add all the bags to the freezer.
The process gets quicker with experience
In the beginning, this may seem like a long process, but with experience, you will begin to get a better sense of what portion size is needed to hit your macronutrient goals.
Eventually, you will be able to eyeball it and won’t even need to use the food scale.
What if you don’t have a food scale?
If you don’t have a food scale, and are wondering what a good portion size of chicken is from a visual standpoint, typically for protein, it is the size of the palm of your hand or a deck of cards.
This measurement should give you a decent serving of protein for your meal.
As I mentioned, I aim to get 40g of protein per meal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need 40g per serving.
Your calorie and macronutrient requirements depends on your body type, your activity level, and your goals.
When I say body type, you have to test to find what works best for your body.
Through a lot of testing, I’ve found what diet works best for me.
So there you have it.
Almost a month’s worth of chicken is now ready
I just prepped and portioned 13 bags of chicken breast.
Each bag contains two servings of chicken so that makes 26 servings of chicken.
I typically have chicken once a day, so that is almost a full month’s worth of chicken, from one shopping trip, that is now already portioned out and ready to go.
All that’s left to do is, before you go to work:
- take a serving of chicken out of the freezer
- put the serving in the fridge to defrost it
- when you come home, it’s ready to be cooked
Easy.
Being prepared is half the battle to Living Lean
So there you have it.
This was a quick post on how to prep and portion your food using a food scale.
You can do this with your chicken, grass fed beef, pork chops, or any food that you’re buying in bulk.
When good food is on sale, save money, and follow these steps on how to prep and portion your good, so you can Live Lean.
As you saw, it’s really not that difficult to do.
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So that’s another week and another episode of Freestyle Friday.
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I’ll see you on Monday, for another episode of Brad’s Cookbook.
Live Lean and have fun.
Questions For You:
- Do you buy in bulk when food goes on sale?
- If so, are you now into the habit of portioning your food?
Be sure to share your answers in the comment section below.
Check out our free workout videos here.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
Great tips and advise! My Sundays are for prepping! Most people think its so much work but they end up regretting their decisions later in the week!
Preparation is the key to success is one of my favorite sayings so this video is right up my alley! Love the healthy meal prep : )
Prepping might be a pain, but it’s sooooo worth it! Gotta have a plan. 🙂