Food scales are accurate but useless — you don't carry one to restaurants, to a friend's house, or onto an airplane. Your hand is a portable, calibrated reference object that scales with your body size: a 6'4" guy has bigger palms than a 5'2" woman, and proportionally bigger portion needs.
This guide explains the standard hand-based estimation system, then shows how CalBurndown automates it.
The four basic shapes
| Hand shape | Roughly equals | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Palm (women: 3 oz / 85 g; men: 4 oz / 113 g) | One serving of protein | Chicken, steak, fish, tofu |
| Cupped hand (women: ½ cup; men: 1 cup) | One serving of carbs | Rice, pasta, fruit, oats |
| Thumb (women: 1 tbsp; men: 2 tbsp) | One serving of fat | Oils, nut butter, cheese, dressing |
| Fist (women: ~1 cup; men: ~1.5 cups) | One serving of vegetables | Salad greens, broccoli, peppers |
A "balanced" plate is typically:
- 1-2 palms of protein
- 1-2 cupped hands of carbs
- 1-2 thumbs of fat
- 1-2 fists of vegetables
Per-meal targets by goal
For a 2,000-2,500 kcal/day budget (typical adult on a moderate deficit):
| Goal | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Veggies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fat loss | 1-2 palms | 1 cupped hand | 1 thumb | 2 fists |
| Maintenance | 1-2 palms | 2 cupped hands | 1-2 thumbs | 2 fists |
| Muscle gain | 2 palms | 2-3 cupped hands | 2 thumbs | 1-2 fists |
Adjust up for bigger bodies, more activity, or athletes. Adjust down for sedentary days.
Why hand-based works
The portion needs of your body are roughly proportional to your body size. A 220 lb adult needs about 70% more protein per meal than a 130 lb adult — and they have proportionally bigger hands. The system self-calibrates.
The downside: hand measurements have a ±20% error. For weight loss, that's fine — the errors largely cancel out across many meals.
For competitive bodybuilding or research-grade tracking, use a scale. For getting to your goal weight in 6 months without losing your mind, hands are enough.
In CalBurndown
Two ways hand-based estimation flows in:
Manual logging
When you type "two palms of chicken and a cupped hand of rice," our parser:
- Looks up your stored hand size (from onboarding)
- Converts palms → ounces, cupped hand → cups
- Multiplies by the food's calorie density
- Returns a calorie estimate
If you haven't calibrated, we default to medium hands (women: 4 oz palm, 1 cup cupped; men: 5 oz palm, 1.25 cups cupped).
AR overlay (coming with the mobile apps)
The native iOS/Android apps will project a virtual reference shape — sized to your specific hand — over the plate in the camera viewfinder. Lay your virtual palm across the protein, your virtual cupped hand on the rice, and CalBurndown logs the result.
This is faster than typing and more accurate than free-eye estimation. It's the killer feature we're shipping with the native shells — for now, the typed flow gives most of the benefit.
Common mistakes
"A small handful of nuts" — almonds are 7 kcal each. A "small handful" usually means 20-25 nuts = 150-180 kcal, easy to underlog by half.
Cheese on a sandwich — restaurant deli cheese is usually 2 slices = 200 kcal you forgot about.
Salad dressing — restaurant pours are 3-4 tbsp = 150-250 kcal. Order on the side and dip the fork.
Cooking oil — a tablespoon is 120 kcal. Most home cooks underestimate by 2x.
Where to go next
- Free hand-portion calculator — try the math before signing up
- How to log meals without scanning barcodes
- How to count calories at restaurants