Things You'll Need:
- A computer with an internet connection and a printer
- Small kitchen food scale
- Measuring cups
- Pen and paper
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Step 1
Go to the website for the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid Tool (see the link below). Enter your weight goal (maintain or lose), age, current weight, height and gender to get your daily calorie goal and serving recommendations.
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Step 2
Print your recommendations, along with the sample list of serving sizes for each food group. It may help to post them prominently in the kitchen, such as on the refrigerator door.
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Step 3
Plan meals around the recommendations. Sample menus are available on the Mayo Clinic website, and you can create menus to suit your own tastes, the availability of seasonal produce, or what is on special at the supermarket. As long as you stay within the recommended servings for each group, menus can be as flexible as you want or need them to be.
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Step 4
Stock up on fruits, vegetables, lean meats, low fat dairy, and whatever carbohydrates you prefer. Fruits and vegetables form the base of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid, and these can be fresh, frozen or canned. When using canned fruit, look for fruit canned in water, and when using canned vegetables, use low-sodium vegetables when available or rinse the vegetables to reduce the salt content. Each calorie goal level in the Pyramid has a small allocation for sweets and fats, so be sure to include those in your shopping, too.
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Step 5
Keep track of what you eat. Weigh and measure your servings to make sure you are not going over or under the serving sizes. For at least the first few weeks, it may help to keep a pen and paper tally of your servings eaten from each group, to make sure you get enough of each without going over.
