How many servings in recipes?

[Bschori]

I have just started the program and am working with the first week recipes in the book. Can someone tell me if a recipe says 2 servings that is meant for 2 people? For instance, the first night’s dinner is a lb of ground beef with tomatoe sauce over spaghetti squash and it says to have the “leftovers” for breakfast the next day. It says 2 servings on the recipe. Is that dinner and breakfast for 1 person or 2?

[ShannonM816]

Servings are very individual. If you check out the meal template, you'll notice protein servings are based on the size of the palm of your hand. Use that guideline to determine meal sizes, and take into consideration how long your meals keep you satisfied. You should be able to go 4-5 hours between meals pretty easily if you're eating enough.  You can download the meal template here:  https://whole30.com/pdf-downloads/

[Anhe]

11 hours ago, Bschori said:

I have just started the program and am working with the first week recipes in the book. Can someone tell me if a recipe says 2 servings that is meant for 2 people? For instance, the first night’s dinner is a lb of ground beef with tomatoe sauce over spaghetti squash and it says to have the “leftovers” for breakfast the next day. It says 2 servings on the recipe. Is that dinner and breakfast for 1 person or 2?

this portion/serving issues drive me crazy too.

[tbrunhoefer]

I would just try to make sure your fulfilled after each meal to begin.  You can drill down on portions later.

[Jihanna]

Servings are how many portions the dish should be able to split into for making a meal. So if a recipe has 2 servings, that's either one person who eats it twice or two people who eat it once; 4 servings could be one person eating four times or 3 people eating once and 1 person having leftovers for the next day (not the only options there, obviously, just giving a different example).

So if the book says it's 2 servings and to have the leftovers the next day, it definitely means that ONE PERSON can eat it for dinner and then have the leftovers the next day, not two meals for two people (that would be 4 servings).

This isn't an exact science, though, because of the "personalized servings" issue. Some of us just plain eat more than others, and some are satisfied with much less, so you'll have to play around with recipes a bit to find out where you fall and how they work (especially if you haven't been used to following recipes and planning meals like this in the past). If you find that the split-up portion isn't going as far as the recipe thinks it should, then it's worth considering a 1.5x or 2x recipe next time if you want to make sure you've got leftovers; likewise, if you realize it seems to have servings that are much larger than you typically need, you'll know that recipe stretches a little further for you.

Also remember that most recipes are for a single dish that might not be intended to stand alone, especially in the context of W30. I've not looked over the recipes in the book myself, so I'm not sure if it gives dishes or meal plans, but my personal rule for planning a dinner is protein, starchy veggie, non-starchy veggie, a bit of fat -- sometimes this is in the form of a chili with a side salad, sometimes it's a casserole, sometimes it's totally separate dishes that we put on the plates however we wish... the whole point is to have a rounded meal that is satisfying and won't have us scrounging in the kitchen at 1 in the morning  

Hope that helps.