How much am I actually eating?This is a good question. You may be eating larger serving sizes than are actually referenced on the food label. This may make it more challenging for you to know exactly how much saturated fat, cholesterol and calories you are eating. Try this experiment - use a measuring cup to see what 1 cup of cereal looks like or 1 teaspoon (level teaspoon, not heaping) of margarine. Does this amount look similar to what you would typically eat?

Monitoring the amount and types of food you eat is important if you trying to lower your blood cholesterol levels and watch your weight.

This activity will teach you how to read food labels and eventually "eyeball" standard serving sizes to help you monitor the amount of saturated fat, cholesterol and calories you are actually eating.

Here’s How it Works

A LIFE SIZE picture of a standard serving (according to the food label) of a particular food will appear on the screen. You must decide whether this looks like a realistic serving to you. Click on YES if it is. Click on NO if this serving is smaller (or larger) than what you would normally eat. If your answer is NO, you will then be given the chance to plug in the number of servings you would actually eat. You will then be given a report of the actual saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories for this serving size.

Sample: A standard serving of cookies=2 cookies. You actually ate 4 cookies. How much saturated fat did you eat? Calories? Cholesterol?

To continue, click on the Start button below for either the Heart Healthy or the TLC Diet . . .