How much should you eat at each meal? Here’s how to work it out without weighing everything

As a sports nutrition coach, there’s one question I get asked more often than any other: “I know I need 285 grams of carbohydrates, 142 grams of protein and 76 grams of fat a day, but what does that actually look like on my plate?” It’s a fair question. An app can tell you what you need, but translating that into what’s on your plate – spread across four or five meals – is something you, as an athlete, have to learn to get a feel for yourself.

Keeping a food diary is, and always will be, the most accurate way to gain that insight, especially if the app makes it easy to log your meals (in the TWINDO One app I’ve made that as easy as possible with just a few clicks; The app is still in beta; you can find out more about it at the bottom of this article). But not every moment is suitable for recording: when you’re out and about, sitting round the table with friends, whilst cooking, or simply on days when you want to know quickly whether your plate is just right without having to reach for your phone. For those moments, I help athletes develop their own sense of portion sizes.

How do you do that? Using the ‘hand-measure’ method: use your own hand as a measuring tape. No scales needed.

Why “per day” alone isn’t enough

A daily total of macros is a good starting point, but it says nothing about how they’re distributed. An athlete who eats just a slice of bread in the morning and crams all their protein and carbohydrates into a single meal in the evening may well reach their daily total, but they’re missing the point. For recovery, energy during training and muscle building, what really matters is how much protein and carbohydrates are consumed at any given time, not just the total at the end of the day.

That’s why “how much per meal” is a realistic, practical question, and why the answer to it is just as important as the daily total your app gives you.

Think in terms of food, not macros

This is where most explanations of the “hand-sized portion” method go wrong: people are told that a “fistful of protein” or a ‘palmful of carbohydrates’ constitutes a portion. Just try to picture that. Protein and carbohydrates are abstract building blocks, not things you can see or pick up, so what exactly are you supposed to picture when you think of a fist or a palm?

That’s why I turn it on its head, and that’s how I teach my clients too: you don’t measure the macronutrient, you measure the food itself. Don’t think “a palmful of protein”, but “a palmful of chicken breast”. Not “a fistful of carbohydrates”, but “a portion of rice the size of your fist”; I’ll refer to this briefly as a ‘fist-sized portion’ later on: an amount the size of your fist. You can certainly picture that, because it’s right there on your plate.

The four benchmarks I use:

• A palm (about the thickness and size of your palm, excluding your fingers) for protein-rich foods: chicken breast, lean beef, salmon, quark, tofu.
• A fistful (about the size of your fist) for starchy foods: rice, potatoes, pasta, porridge, fruit.
• A thumb (from the tip to the first joint) for high-fat foods: olive oil, peanut butter, nuts, avocado.
• Two full hands As for vegetables, there’s actually no limit here.

Your hand is proportional to your body size, so the portion size automatically adjusts to suit your needs. A larger athlete with greater energy requirements naturally also has a larger hand. Research by the University of Sydney (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-nutritional-science/article/accuracy-of-hands-v-household-measures-as-portion-size-estimation-aids/E7193B701BF92DDF0A043D71EE70C95A) shows that hand and finger measurements are a more reliable method of estimation than everyday measures such as cups and spoons. Precision Nutrition (https://www.precisionnutrition.com/hand-portion-math-to-track-macros), which has been using the method extensively in its coaching programme for years, reports an accuracy of around 95 per cent compared with precise weighing. It’s therefore a useful skill to have alongside any form of recording.

From a fistful to a gram: how to make the connection

Now it’s really starting to come in handy, because your app gives you the grams for the amount of carbohydrates, protein and fat, rather than rough estimates. I’ll explain exactly how this works below, using the same examples I use in my coaching sessions.

A palm-sized portion of chicken breast or other lean meat weighs around 120 to 150 grams, providing approximately 25 to 30 grams of protein. If you opt for an oily fish such as salmon, that same palmful will also contain 8 to 12 grams of fat. That’s not a problem, but it’s good to know if you’re keeping a close eye on your fat intake. A palmful of quark or Greek yoghurt, simply served in a bowl, weighs about 150 to 200 grams and provides 20 to 25 grams of protein. If you follow a plant-based diet, a palmful of tofu or tempeh (150 to 180 grams) is in the same ballpark.

For carbohydrates, use a fist-sized portion as a guide. A fistful of cooked rice weighs around 150 to 180 grams and provides 40 to 45 grams of carbohydrates. The same fist-sized portion of cooked potatoes is slightly heavier (200 to 250 grams) for a comparable amount of carbohydrates, as potatoes contain more water. A fist-sized portion of dry porridge weighs only 40 to 50 grams, but still provides 25 to 30 grams of carbohydrates. Dry cereals are simply denser than cooked ones. A piece of fruit the size of your fist, such as an apple or a banana, provides around 20 to 25 grams of carbohydrates.

For fat, use your thumb. A thumbful of olive oil is 10 to 15 millilitres, which is equivalent to 10 to 15 grams of fat. A thumbful of peanut butter (15 to 20 grams) provides about 9 to 12 grams of fat, and a handful of unsalted nuts (25 to 30 grams) contains around 15 to 18 grams of fat. A quarter of an avocado provides a further 6 to 8 grams of fat.

Vegetables aren’t counted towards your macros; you can always have two handfuls, as they mainly provide fibre and micronutrients.

For liquids and prepared dishes, a handful isn’t as useful. In those cases, I prefer to use a glass and a portion as practical units of measurement. A glass of milk or buttermilk (200 to 250 millilitres) provides around 10 grams of protein and 10 grams of carbohydrates. A glass of full-fruit orange juice or another fruit juice (200 millilitres) contains around 20 grams of carbohydrates, with no significant protein or fat. A portion of pasta, as taken dry from the packet – the amount most manufacturers specify as a single portion – is 75 to 100 grams dry, which amounts to over 50 to 65 grams of carbohydrates after cooking. A portion of muesli or cruesli (40 to 50 grams, or a heaped breakfast bowl) provides 25 to 30 grams of carbohydrates, comparable to a fist-sized portion of porridge.

That’s how you can work it out. Does your app recommend 45 grams of carbohydrates for breakfast? Then that’s roughly a fistful of porridge, or a piece of fruit plus half a fistful of rice cakes. The app’s precision remains the same, but it’s now practical to use at the dinner table too.

My tip: For the first two weeks, do carry on using these examples alongside a set of scales, simply to check whether your hand size corresponds to the weights given. After all, some people have bigger hands than others, and this quick calibration step will prevent you from consistently portioning food too generously or too sparingly.

From daily total to mealtime: the allocation formula

Now for the practical application: how many palm-sized portions, fist-sized portions and thumb-sized portions should you spread across your meals? A simple, workable breakdown for the average (endurance) athlete with four meals a day looks something like this.

When breakfast A palm-sized portion of quark or eggs, a fist-sized portion of porridge or bread, and a thumb-sized portion of nuts or peanut butter. With the lunch Can we be a bit more generous with the portions: one and a half to two palm-sized portions of chicken, fish or quark; one to two fist-sized portions of rice, potatoes or bread; and a thumb-sized portion of oil or avocado. Around a training Stick to about one palm-sized portion of protein, but increase your carbohydrate intake to one or two fist-sized portions, depending on the intensity and duration of the session. You should deliberately limit your fat intake here, as it slows down digestion around the time of exercise. When dinner Finally, another one-and-a-half to two palm-sized portions of meat, fish or a plant-based alternative, a fist-sized portion of carbohydrates, and a little more room for fat: one to two thumb-sized portions.

This is a starting point, not a rule set in stone. Someone with a high energy requirement (for example, 2800+ kcal) simply counts more handfuls at any given time, whilst someone with a lower requirement counts fewer. The ratio remains the guiding principle; the absolute quantity scales according to the individual.

Please note: quantities are only half the story when it comes to training and competition. When you eat that fistful of carbohydrates matters just as much. You should plan your last normal meal about 2 to 3 hours before a training session, and just before it (from about 15 minutes beforehand) you should have no more than a small snack containing fast-acting carbohydrates – not a full meal. Recovery after a competition, on the other hand, has its own timing. I cover this in detail in TWINDO One: specific advice on what you should eat before, during and after a training session or competition. What you eat is one piece of the puzzle; how much and when you eat it around those times is the other.

A supplement to your diary, not a replacement

The great thing about this method is that you get a sense of what’s on your plate without having to keep track of anything. Is the proportion roughly in line with what I need, or am I way off the mark?

That makes it a useful addition to your food diary, not a replacement. Recording your intake remains the best way to really know what you’re consuming, and that’s also why I built TWINDO One: to ensure that recording takes as little time and effort as possible. In the most comprehensive subscription plan, TWINDO Progress, this goes one step further with a Daily Tracker: it continuously compares what you’ve already eaten and drunk (from your diary) against your daily target (the recommended intake), and shows you what you still need to reach that target. But when logging isn’t practical, or if you simply want to practise your own judgement, the ‘hand-portion’ method gives you a quick guide wherever you are: at home, at work, or at a restaurant table. And the better you develop that skill, the more valuable your recorded data becomes: you’ll be quicker to sense when a day is at risk of becoming unbalanced, even before you’ve entered the details. Two skills that reinforce each other, so to speak.

When (temporary) weighing does make sense

This does not mean that ‘wegen’ is useless. For those who:

• must achieve a competition weight within a tight margin,
• wants to learn for the first time how portion sizes work really check (calibration),
• or is just starting a bulking or cutting phase with a specific goal in mind,

Weighing things carefully for a few weeks is extremely valuable. It trains your eye. Over time, you’ll be able to estimate a portion of rice or chicken breast just by looking at it, because your brain will have built up that reference point. Weighing isn’t an end in itself, but a way of training your ability to estimate, just like a set of scales that you’ll eventually no longer need.

Getting practical

1. Get your daily macros from your app (carbohydrates, protein and fat in grams).
2. Use the examples above to convert those grams into fist-sized portions, palm-sized portions and thumb-sized portions for each food. This is the direct link between your app’s advice and what you put on your plate.
3. Spread the number of hand-sized portions across your meals based on your training schedule: more carbohydrates around your training sessions, and protein spread out evenly.
4. For the first 1–2 weeks, do weigh the foods you eat most often once, and compare the weights with those given above. That way, you’ll know whether your hand is larger or smaller than average, and you can adjust the rule of thumb slightly to suit yourself. After that, just go by eye.

This way, you combine the best of both worlds: the accuracy your app provides on a daily basis (TWINDO One is one such app, if you’re still looking) with a practical, sustainable way of applying that to each meal.Without your life revolving around a kitchen scales.

A quick note for anyone wanting to try TWINDO One: the app is still in beta. Virtually all screens and features, including the food diary, have been tested, but the app doesn’t yet work perfectly in all situations. The sign-up and subscription process also still needs to prove that it works well in practice. Would you like to have a look and share your thoughts anyway? Log in You can do that now – you’ll be one of the first testers.