The key to dieting success may literally be in your hands

The key to dieting success may literally be in your hands

Struggling to lose weight? Suzy Wengel will lend you a helping hand.

“People know what to eat [on] a healthy diet,” the Danish dietitian tells The Post. It’s how much to eat that’s the issue. The married mother of five hopes to change that with her book “The Scandi Sense Diet” (Mitchell Beazley), which was just printed in English for the first time after creating a craze in Scandinavia last year.

Her diet advice is simple: Only eat what you can hold in your hands and a spoon.

Essentially, Wengel recommends using your hands like measuring cups. One handful — hand cupped, fingers touching — equals one serving. Meals should be composed of a few handfuls of food: one to two of veggies, one of lean protein and one of a carb, meaning a starch or fruit. (You don’t have to scoop mashed potatoes with your bare hands; just hold your cupped hand next to your plate for a visual aid.) Then, grab a tablespoon to measure out fats, such as oil, nuts or mayonnaise — up to three spoonfuls per meal.

Do that for three square meals a day and you could shed dozens of pounds over time, she writes. Wengel herself lost 88 pounds over nine months.

Wengel devised her measuring strategy after struggling to lose weight for nearly two decades. At her heaviest, she weighed 220 pounds and could eat “maybe six, eight, 10,000 calories in one meal,” she says. She “tried everything” from nixing carbs and sugar to “yo-yo dieting,” but the weight always came back. But after her sons were born, she decided to prioritize her health and became a dietitian. Through research — and a desire to avoid obsessive calorie-counting — her handy plan was born.

While she concedes that it’s not an exact science, she writes that hand-measuring works pretty well since “the size of our hands is most often related to our build and height.” And it yields results: She says adherents typically “lose an average of somewhere between [³/₄ to 1 ³/₄ pounds] a week.”

Beyond your handfuls and spoonfuls, there’s some wiggle room throughout the day for up to 1 ¼ cup of dairy, plus a spoonful or two of creamy dressing per meal. You can have as much flavor as you like. Spice rubs and marinades, even ones sweetened with sugar or honey, are A-OK. Every now and then, you can go rogue and indulge — as long as you “head [into] the next [meal] eating healthy again.”

So, how do you know if Wengel’s hands-on approach is right for you? While she thinks it’s a good common-sense tool for anyone, she says the “basic system works best for people who want to lose between [10 and 65 pounds].” That’s not to say you can’t try it if your weight goals are more ambitious, but she thinks “very overweight” folks will likely need four meals in the beginning to support their higher metabolic needs. Dr. Rekha Kumar, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, thinks that people with “an extreme degree of … obesity” may struggle with a portion-control plan like this, since it may leave them “too hungry.”

If you do decide to embark on the handful method, know that it’s not a quick fix, Wengel says. “Nothing works if you don’t make a habit out of it.”

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