# What are proper portion sizes for kidney stone prevention? Source: https://kidneystonediet.com/preview/ep/what-are-proper-portion-sizes-for-kidney-stone-prevention/ Published: 2024-05-28 --- [Embedded content](https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/6tOp4LiXbXEYIB79gqh0i7) [![Kidney Stone Diet Podcast](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Podcast-1-1024x1024.jpg)](https://kidneystonediet.com/preview/podcast/) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-are-proper-portion-sizes-for-kidney-stone-prevention/id1528474326?i=1000657040410&uo=4)[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tOp4LiXbXEYIB79gqh0i7)[Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0868148d-adfd-411d-b3f2-71a0ad1461ec) May 28, 2024 --- ![Jeff Sarris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Jeff-Sarris-150x150.jpg) Jeff Sarris Host ![Jill Harris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Jill-Harris-150x150.jpg) Jill Harris Host The conversation discusses the importance of portion sizes in preventing kidney stones and provides guidance on how to calculate and determine appropriate portion sizes. It emphasizes the concept of portion not perfection, where individuals should focus on portion control rather than striving for perfection in their diet. The conversation also highlights the confusion surrounding portion sizes and the limitations of nutrition labels. It concludes by emphasizing the need for individualized portion sizes based on factors such as weight, medical conditions, and dietary restrictions. **Takeaways** - Portion sizes play a crucial role in preventing kidney stones. - The concept of portion not perfection encourages individuals to focus on portion control rather than striving for a perfect diet. - Portion sizes should be individualized based on factors such as weight, medical conditions, and dietary restrictions. - Nutrition labels may not always provide accurate guidance on portion sizes. - It is important to enjoy food in moderation and not deprive oneself of favorite foods. - A balanced plate should include a variety of fruits, vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates. \ **Sound Bites** - “One big mistake people make when preventing kidney stones is the portion size of their food.” - “How much should I have? Well, I’m 5 ‘2 and 115 pounds. Jeff is 6 ‘4 and 190. We’re going to have very different portion sizes to maintain our weight.” - “Portion not perfection means a few things. You’re grown people, you’re allowed to make your own decisions on what you want to put in your mouth.” \ 00:00 Introduction: The Importance of Portion Sizes\ 02:51 Individualized Portion Sizes Based on Weight\ 05:50 Portion Not Perfection: Focusing on Portion Control\ 09:26 Balancing the Plate: Fruits, Vegetables, Protein, and Carbs\ 14:11 Enjoying Food in Moderation and Portion Sizes This podcast is designed to entertain and inform — not provide medical advice. 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For more than 25 years she’s helped patients understand that kidney stones can be prevented with the right treatment plan. It’s one thing to be told to lower oxalate or drink more water, but HOW do you do it? That’s where she comes in. Through the educational resources at [kidneystonediet.com](https://kidneystonediet.com/), stone formers can learn everything they need to know to significantly lower new stone risk. *Some of the links above may be affiliate links which means that we earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!* ## Chapters - 00:00:00 Portion Control in Kidney Stone Prevention - 00:00:51 Listener Question on Portions and Raspberries - 00:02:51 Factors Influencing Individual Dietary Portion Sizes - 00:15:31 Kidney Stone Diet Support and Coaching - 00:15:58 Low Oxalate Pumpkin Protein Oat Bars - 00:18:13 Kidney Stone Meal Plans and Recipes ## Transcript ### Portion Control in Kidney Stone Prevention 00:00:00 Jeff Sarris One big mistake people make when preventing kidney stones is the portion size of their food. But what is a portion size? How do you calculate it? How do you know how much to eat? Let's talk about that today. 00:00:11 Jill Harris Hi, Jeff. I'm excited to talk about this portion stuff because we all know portion, not perfection, that is what the mantra here is. We have a couple mantras: portion, not perfection, and turn it around, bust a brand, meaning when you have a food, make sure you're looking at the ingredients, so always turn it around. But today we're going to talk about portions. And, you know, honestly, I just think people are super confused about what a portion is. We have on our—go ahead, what were you going to say? 00:00:39 Jeff Sarris And we actually do have a question on it, so I'm just going to play the question real quick before we dive in. 00:00:44 Jill Harris Look at me, I'm already diving in! I'm like, yeah, let's talk about portion. Okay, we have a question. Go ahead. Great! ### Listener Question on Portions and Raspberries 00:00:51 Jeff Sarris Hi, Jeff. Hi, Jill. This is Drummond. I am—my present location is Bogota, Colombia at the moment. And, first of all, thanks for everything you guys do. Secondly, there's a lot of talk about—by Jill about normal portion size, reasonable portion size. But I don't really see anything about what that actually means. And so I'm just curious if Jill could elaborate on that a little bit. For instance, raspberries, the USDA portion size is 1 cup, but I think the message is just like put a sprinkle of raspberries on your yogurt like you do with blueberries. But, and Jill mentioned on Facebook that part of it has to do with, you know, basically the person and how big they are, and portion size is sort of based on that as well. So I'm just wondering what are the factors that go into portion size and what's your advice? All right, thanks. Yeah, so, great question, because, yeah, it isn't— 00:02:06 Jill Harris It's a great question! 00:02:07 Jeff Sarris Yeah, it isn't super concrete in what the answer is. 00:02:10 Jill Harris No, and I love Drummond. He's on the Facebook page, and the Facebook page is a private group where there's thousands of people and it's Kidney Stone Diet with Jill Harris. Go look for that on Facebook. All kinds of free help on there, people, with stone formers just like you. And Drummond is a beloved member of that page. So he asks a very good question. And, yes, I talk about it all the time, but Drummond's like, "All right, old lady, I hear you talking about it, but how much should I have?" Well, I'm 5'2" and 115 lb. Jeff is 6'4"— 00:02:47 Jeff Sarris 6'4". 00:02:48 Jill Harris Yeah, and how much do you weigh? 00:02:49 Jeff Sarris Around 190. ### Factors Influencing Individual Dietary Portion Sizes 00:02:51 Jill Harris Okay, Jeff is 6'4" and 190. We're not going to have—we're going to have very different portion sizes to maintain our weight. So Drummond's like, "Well, what the hell? How much should I have?" Drummond, I don't know how big you are. So it's very confusing. We don't have good answers. And then you have what the package says. The package is saying what a serving is. A lot of—a lot of, by the way, nutrition labels have changed lately because it used to be what people—the portion size was calculated on what people were eating, but, obviously, those portion sizes have changed over the decades and we're eating more. So a lot of—a lot of nutrition labels are updated. You'll see the serving size doesn't mean that's how much you should be having, by the way, folks. It's just giving you nutritional information for a serving size. You may have five of those servings, so you'd have to times it by five, right? I may have half a serving. So, again, nutrition labels aren't telling you that's what you should eat, it's just telling you, for this serving, here's the nutritional info. There's that. Let's put that on the shelf. I like how he specifically asked, "Let's talk about raspberries." Harvard says they have studied them and they're—they're lower. They're on the lower side now. Does that mean I'm going to eat more than 1 cup of raspberries? Absolutely not, I'm not. And Drummond said a serving size for US is 1 cup of fruit, that's—that's a serving size. So does that mean Drummond has to have one serving size? No, he may want five. But, you know, for him as a stone former, it's going to be different than somebody who's not a stone former. Somebody may eat four servings and not worry about it, because they're not a stone former and they're not going to make stones. But Drummond may watch his portions based upon the oxalate list, which you can find the Harvard oxalate list at kidneystonediet.com. So that's why you'll never hear me say a man who weighs 200 lb should have this much of this much. We can't say that. How do we know? Are you losing weight? Are you trying to gain weight? Maintaining weight? So there's so much that goes into this. When I'm talking about portion, not perfection, I'm specifically talking to kidney stone formers and their worry, their intense anxiety over oxalate. So specifically, in my world, people will say, "Jill, I can't have cinnamon? I can't have chocolate? I can't have this?" You can! It's about being paying attention to the portion, not being perfect. Because we know one thing in the diet world: when we're trying to be perfect, we typically fail because there's no such thing as perfect, and we can't deprive ourselves of our favorite food for the rest of our life. Of course, unless it's spinach, almond products, or chia seeds, you know, we got to slow our roll on those things. But portion, not perfection, is specific for kidney stone formers and anybody who's trying to lose weight. It doesn't mean one has to give up their all-time favorite things, it just means people can't eat as much as they want of Doritos anymore if you're trying to be a little bit more healthy. Can you have Doritos? 100%. Do I want you eating five bags of them? That would be no. So portion, not perfection, means a few things. You're grown people, you're allowed to make your own decisions on what you want to put in your mouth. If it's something that's very high in added sugar, salt, and oxalate, I'm going to ask you, pay attention to portion size. Maybe sometimes you won't, that's okay, just get right back on track. It's the need for us, when we're paying attention to food, not to be perfect. I don't want people to think they have to be perfect. Have something, a little bit, move on. Portion, not perfection, means that. Nobody's getting diabetes or a kidney stone because they went a little bit overboard on something. Get right back to work. Portion sizes. USDA will say we need 3 cups of veggies and 2 cups of fruits. That's minimum. That's where every American should be. That's where the US wants—the USDA wants our guidelines to be that. That's where they want it to be. Most people don't get anywhere near that. Nowhere near that. And that's sad. And that's why we're all hungry all the time, because we're missing all that great fiber. So portion size. I eat at least 2 cups of fruit a day, probably more. I eat at least 3 cups of vegetables a day, probably more. Some days more, some days if I'm having a bad bowel day, not as much, because I'm slowing my roll on fiber, just depends. Everybody's different. What is a portion size? So, you know, the dreaded palm of your hand for meat, if you eat meat, 3 to 4 oz is a portion, okay? But, again, I'm using that. I don't know if Jeff is using 3 oz of meat. He might be like, "Why am I even getting a fork and knife out for this?" So, again, your portion will depend on, like for the meat, protein needs of the Kidney Stone Diet. Go to Kidney Stone Diet, just Google Kidney Stone Diet and do the meat protein calculator and you can see how many ounces of meat you can have in a given day. But all of us will be different. Typically, it is the palm of your hand is 3 to 4 oz of meat. And, again, Jeff's going to have a bigger palm than me. These are general guidelines, folks. This isn't meant for every human being in the world because we all have different needs. This is why it is so generic. You have to really talk to somebody to really—dietitian, nutritionist, dietitian—to figure out your specific needs. Everybody's different. Some people work out more, some people are sitting on their butt all day, some people have Crohn's, some people have bowel disease, some people have malabsorption, some people are on low FODMAP, I mean, there's so many things, gluten sensitive. Carbs, typically, is a fist. That's a portion size, about a cup. That's typically a portion size of a carb, like rice. For me, 1/2 a cup, cuz I'm little. 1/2 a cup of carbs is my portion size. 1/2 a cup of rice is 150 calories. Do I need 300 calories of rice? Where the hell am I putting it in 5'2" body? So pay attention to carbs. Whole grain carbs are awesome, please eat them. Nobody should be afraid of carbs, but that should not be the biggest portion on your plate. So there's that. Your plate should look like a little bit of protein, no matter if it's a vegetarian protein, meat protein, or non-meat protein, vegetables, a fourth of your plate carbs. But mostly, it should be, I say, I say, half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables, the other one split with meat and carbs. That's how I eat. But, again, you may have different needs. You may be on dialysis, you may have chronic kidney disease, you need to talk to whoever's taking care of you for your portion sizes, for your weight control. It's going to be very different. It will be said that your cupped hand, cupped, not flat—my flat hand is a lot bigger than a cupped hand—that is what a snack portion should be. But, again, if I'm looking for a snack, say I want those Harvest Pea Crisps, which I love—they're they're they're in our Jill's favorite things, I'm sure, under this video. You know, it will say a certain amount of those pea crisps is a serving. But that may not be a serving for me, meaning I may not want that much, or I may want more! That's just saying, again, the nutritional info in that serving, this is what it is, that's what's in it. Doesn't mean that's what you should have. So I want to make sure that's clear. Now, this will this is this is crazy because a lot of you, I know, love cheese. Your thumb, your thumb—I hope you're on YouTube looking at this, so you can see it better. But your thumb, that's an ounce of cheese. And I know when there's a cheese plate coming around, people, no one's looking at a thumb and cutting that much off. You're eating some cheese! So that cheese is filled with all kinds of things, mostly salt, a lot of saturated fat. If you're on keto, God bless, enjoy. But pay attention to salt if you're on keto and kidney stones, because those don't go well together. So you can have cheese, all of you can eat cheese, but be aware, if you have cholesterol issues, it's very high in saturated fat. I have cholesterol issues, so if I ate too much cheese, my cholesterol does go up. Yes, keto people, I see you. Not everybody's cholesterol goes up from cheese, but a lot of people do, okay? And then the other thing is it's cheese is Jilly loves cheese. Well, of course! It's filled with salt and fat! Who doesn't love cheese? It's delicious! So it's really 1 oz portion is the size of a little thumb print. So, you know, that's how much cheese is a portion. What you eat is what you eat. So I guess, Drummond, it's all very vague because we are all very different. That's the point of this. Unless you're working with somebody who is dealing with your specific medical conditions, what's going on with you, food sensitivities, allergies, you may have different portions based upon your needs of things. Hope that makes sense. It is it's just it's, you know, portion, not perfection, though, means I don't want anyone to think they have to give up all their favorite foods in order to lose weight, maintain weight, lower their kidney stone risk. Nobody here is supposed to be perfect. The diet industry will make you think that if you have a little artif— you know, a little candy or a cookie, you're going to blow up. It's such bullshit, people! Just enjoy your life, not too much when it comes to food. You want to rein it in, get right back to work. You're going to have birthdays, you're going to have vacations, you're going to celebrate things. Food is also part of our culture, it's part of holidays, it's it's it's a million different things. It's not always about nourishing your body, which I'm one of the biggest proponents of, but you also have to live your life. And when you give yourself permission to enjoy—sometimes we just need to enjoy foods because it makes our heart and head feel good, maybe not our body so much. But it's very important once you understand this portion, not perfection philosophy, you can just breathe a little bit better, know that there's flexibility in your diet, and that is why my patients are so successful. I'm giving them permission, but, more importantly, they're giving themselves permission to enjoy the foods they want to enjoy in a normal portion size, and sometimes not. But when they overdo it, they get right back on track. They don't shame themselves, they don't feel bad about it, guilty, any of that craziness. It's simply food, folks, and sometimes we want fun foods. That's perfectly okay. Portion, not perfection. Drummond, I'm so glad you asked that. It's I don't know if this clears it up because the problem is it just depends on a million different things. There's no there's no generic plan for each of us, there's just not. So you have to figure out the portions that are right for you and what's going on for you, and we don't want you to be perfect, that's the takeaway. ### Kidney Stone Diet Support and Coaching 00:15:31 Jeff Sarris Absolutely. Yeah, and at kidneystonediet.com, you can find the group coaching to work with Jill, like, as she said, how everyone is different. In a group setting every week, she has multiple calls every week with the community, with the rest of your fellow kidney stoners, or however you want to refer to everyone. But everyone coming together to sort of discuss where they're at and where they can go, where they want to be, and how they can get there. ### Low Oxalate Pumpkin Protein Oat Bars 00:15:58 Jill Harris Oh, Jeff, I have a new product alert, too! I got to tell you what, honey! People in my group calls know this. I worked very hard on these, let me tell you. Look at these. If you got to go on YouTube, folks, so you can see this. I probably spent $17,000 trying to figure out this set of page, but it's worth it because these are really good bars. 00:16:21 Jeff Sarris Yeah, what are they? 00:16:22 Jill Harris They are protein pumpkin oat bars. So no whey if you're a non-dairy person. I used this product, which I love, organic pumpkin seed protein powder. And for 2 tablespoons, so for my vegan friends, this is wonderful, 2 tablespoons has 19 g of protein and 100 calories. And then, also, we have some there's some good iron in here, so you get 40% of your iron for my friends who are iron deficient. It's a great vegan way to get it. I mean, the salt and the sugar on these bars are there's like less than 50 mg of salt, there's no added sugar, they're delicious, and they're great for people always like, "Jill, what about a pack-and-go granola bar that's low in oxalate?" Folks, I just made it! It's in the meal plan. Go to kidneystonediet.com, the meal plan service. There's so many new recipes in there, you're going to be blown away. But these bars, man, I've been giving them away. You know, I do a lot of testing, obviously, for the meal plan, so I'm always giving I'm always giving free samples. "Is it good? Do you like it?" And these are all people, my neighbors, that are not going to blow any smoke up my face, so they're like, "No, Jill, get back in the kitchen." So I had to keep perfecting these, but we got it. These are delicious, you're going to love them. And listen, protein bars are $2-something a pop. You got a whole thing here and you got them for the week now, so they're great. I'm I'm so happy about them, which tells me I need to get a life. But when you've spent so many hours in the kitchen trying to perfect something, I can't tell you how many times I wanted to give up on this specific recipe, but I'm so glad I didn't. They're awesome: pumpkin protein oat bars, delicious! ### Kidney Stone Meal Plans and Recipes 00:18:13 Jeff Sarris Very cool. Yeah, definitely check out the meal plans at kidneystonediet.com because that is where you can find all of the recipes. I mean, we're in we're in the hundreds now that you're constantly creating and really given a diverse collection of foods that people can eat to prove that the Kidney Stone Diet isn't restrictive. It's merely just a sort of a refocusing on what you're eating and your portions. But, yeah, if thanks again, Drummond, for that question, that was perfect. If you're out there with a question, the number is 773-789-8763 and we will feature your voice on a future episode. But I think with that, we will wrap for this week. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time. 00:18:52 Jill Harris Thanks, Drummond, great question! We value you, thank you!