Hands On!

Well, like the rest of the post holiday's masses, I am on a mission to lose a few pounds.
I've been obsessing over Pinterest for inspiration photos and quotes like this one:

Sometimes I wonder, "am I the only person out there who doesn't get 'portion control" when it comes to what I eat?  Don't get me wrong, I know that to lose weight, or even in some cases, to maintain one's weight you need to reduce calories.  

There just seems to be SO much confusing information out there that, while I feel extremely educated on WHAT I should be eating, I've found myself sabotaging my diet by how much I'm eating.

The today, I stumbled upon some really useful information.  

"The Hands On Approach", which was talked about on the Today Show this morning and I felt the heavens part and angels sing as it all made sense to me!

If you don't already know this 

(I'm often the last to know these things), 

the rule is as follows:

Use your hand as a measuring devise:

For cheese: 1 oz is approximately the size of your thumb

Grains should be approximately the amount of one handful

Meat should be the size of the palm of your hand

Vegetables the size of two hands full

Obviously, men consume more calories that women because they are on average, larger...go figure.

It's so simple!

So, here's what I made for lunch today and I followed this rule in preparation:

I roasted 5 Brussel sprouts along with 2 carrots and 1 clove of garlic, a splash of olive oil and a dash of red pepper flakes in at 400 degree oven until they were lightly caramelized.  

I put it over an handful of brown rice and it was SO GOOD.  

Tons of flavor and the portion was PERFECT. 

One step closer to this:

Or at the  very least, what I looked like 3 years ago before moving to Texas, 

where fried food is it's own food group.