March has been designated (by someone) as "nutrition month" so you may be hearing and reading about the food pyramid again. I dislike the food pyramid. It's been good for government agencies and entrepreneurs who have spent big bucks attempting to create resources to make it useful. Nevertheless, another study shows most Americans eat as though it was upside down. In short, it's not working.

Most the confusion is about serving sizes. Most people don't have a clue what the size of a serving of any given food is. Once they learn they ask, "Who are these servings aimed at?" They might feed a small woman but 4 oz. of anything will never satisfy my favorite professional basketball player. Food pyramid guidelines don't help because recommendations are always given in a range.

First of all, serving sizes are the same for EVERYBODY. What changes from person to person is the # of servings recommended for that person. For example, my basketball player, with a 265 pound weight goal needs 4-5 servings of meat a day but a small woman needs only two. The basketball player requires up to 18 servings of fruits and vegetables and 24 servings of grains but the small woman needs only 6 servings of fruits and vegetables and 8 of grains. In short, the number of servings YOU need is based on your weight GOAL + your exercise expenditure.

I continue to believe the SMART EATING Target illustrated in a book I co-authored is a the simplest and easiest way to understand food and make food choices that can result in a balanced and varied lower in fat, lower in sugar and higher in fiber diet without giving up your favorite foods. The specific guidelines for "how many servings in a given food group?" is based on a system I created that provides specific guidelines for a variety of weight goals. Now you can get an abbreviated version of the copyrighted system on a poster sold in a package with SMART EATING. Meantime if you want to reference some cool VISUALS that will help you remember what a serving size REALLY is, read the newsletter archives on this site.