Knowing how to estimate serving sizes is the first step toward proper portion control, but keep in mind that everyone has different caloric needs.

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With Thanksgiving fast approaching, pantries around town are already filled with a cornucopia of comfort foods. Two days from now, it'll be bellies — not kitchens — that are stuffed.

Knowing when to say when is an important part of healthy eating on holidays and other days. Understanding recommended serving sizes and appropriate portions could help.

Though we tend to use the words "portion" and "serving" interchangeably, they are actually different things, said Hana Abdulaziz Feeney, a nutritionist at Canyon Ranch. While a serving size is a recommended amount, a portion size is the amount of food that actually passes your lips. In other words, a recommended serving of turkey is 3 ounces — about the size of a deck of cards — but your portion is whatever you eat of the amount that you heaped onto your plate.

When it comes to portion control, awareness is key, said Lisa Staten, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's College of Public Health. Learning to estimate a serving size is a tool that people can use to help understand their caloric intake, tame overeating and take control of their weight.

And, she said, it's important to understand that just because a food item is packaged as a single serving, that doesn't mean it actually is.

"People are perceiving that as a serving, but when you look at the fine print, it's four," Staten said.

Nutrition labels on food packages are helpful, but they can also vary from the government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans standardized serving sizes, Abdulaziz Feeney said.

"It's really confusing, and it's partly why portions are really hard for us to understand," she said.

But when it comes down to it, the differences don't really matter, she added. She doesn't recommend that people weigh or measure their food to reach the exact recommended serving sizes.

"Everybody is a different size, which means they have different needs," she said. "We all have different levels of physical activity. We all have different jobs and we all have different goals, so the balance of calories throughout the day is going to be different. That 3-ounce serving is by no means goal standard for everyone."

People instead should look at their usual portions and decide whether they need to change them, she said.

"If I'm trying to lose weight, I want to eat slightly less than I currently am, so I want to pour slightly less or cook slightly less food or leave more food on the plate," she said.

It's best to not make drastic changes, said Abdulaziz Feeney, whose tips for portion control appear to the right.

If you just realized that your normal portion looks like three decks of cards (about 9 ounces), you shouldn't drop down to the suggested one deck (3 ounces) immediately.

"You are not going to be happy, and that's not going to be realistic for you to sustain," she said. "A sustainable change might be to eat 6 ounces instead of 9, or 8 ounces instead of 9. Whatever you choose to do has to be something realistic, and the bigger the change, the less likely you are to maintain it."

If you're not willing to cut back in size, try a different food. A 3-ounce portion of fish or chicken is about 100 calories, while the same portion of steak is about 300 calories.

"Portions are only one tool that you have to adjust calories," she said. "If you have a 9-ounce protein portion at night, instead of steak, make it fish or chicken. The portion stays the same, but the calories change and the nutrients change."

While this can be confusing territory, said Abdulaziz Feeney, who is a registered dietitian, the key to portion control is simple.

"The bottom line is, whether we're talking about calories or portions or servings, if you need to manage your weight, look at what you're doing now and take it down 25 percent, just small, small changes," she said. "Do everything you can to understand what you're eating, and then you can make choices as to where you want to make changes."