Eating Too Many Cashews?

Are you eating too many cashews? If you are like me, the answer is, probably, yes. My favorite is cashews followed by pecans, almonds and then the walnuts. If I can mix all four of these nuts together, then this is what I call "heaven". However, I'm trying to lose weight so I have to be very careful about how much I'm consuming. 

I hear this all of the time from my clients, that they are not losing weight even though they are on the Daniel Fast, The South Beach diet or the Paleo diet.  Most of the time, I find they are consuming too many nuts, more than 8 ounces or 250 ml. Once they cut back, the pounds start to drop off.

So, how many should you consume a day?  Here's a breakdown on the serving sizes of the different nuts:

Walnuts: 1 ounce 14 halves
Cashews: 1 ounce 18 kernels
Almonds: 1 ounce 23 kernels
Peanuts:  1 ounce or 4 tablespoons
Macadamia: 1 ounce or 12 or 13 kernels

Pecans: 1 ounce or 20 halves

As you can see, most of us consume more than this and with the average of the nuts above being 180 calories, this is the reason why your progress might be slow going.

What to do?

You have three options to control your nut consumption:

1. Buy small packages

I like this option the best for me because I can't stop eating them if I buy a large container of nut's, especially cashews and pecans.  It is not very frugal, but it helps with portion control.  The only caution when buying a small package of nuts, make sure they only have one serving per package.

2. Buy a large container and split up the nuts in snack-size plastic baggies 

This is a great option too but not for me.  I would have to have my husband hide them from me.  Once I have my nut consumption under control, I will be buying my nuts in bulk especially since it is more economical. 

3. Don't buy them

If the two options don't work for you, then you might have to lay off of nuts until you learn discipline when eating them.

Are you good at portion control when eating nuts? If so, how do you keep your consumption under control? If not, check out these individual small packs you can buy on Amazon.