Do you eat your recommended servings of fruits and vegetables? Not many people do.

Increasing the fruits and vegetables you eat isn't as hard as you think. Many people overestimate what is actually considered a serving of fruit or vegetables. Those super-sized portions we've become accustomed to affect us in more ways than one!

Check out this guide for fruit and vegetable serving sizes, then keep track of your progress with this handy Veggie and Fruit Tracker from AOL Health.

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Confused about how many fruits and veggies to eat in a day? You should be, because the number keeps changing. First, it was five a day. Then, five to nine. Now the message has changed again. This time, though, it's a little easier to understand.

Just eat more.

If you're currently getting only one serving of produce a day, go for two. If you can make it three, even better. Don't count. Just eat.

Scientists say fruits and vegetables promote good health. In more exact terms, they reduce hypertension and coronary heart disease, lower the risk of diabetes and several types of cancer, ward off macular degeneration, and assist in weight loss. I, for one, don't need any more evidence to support what I should be doing -- eating more! How about you?

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Once upon a time, someone tried to sell me some supplements that promised to give me the vitamins and nutrients that fruits and vegetables give me, all in a once-a-day pill form. 'But I already eat plenty of fruits and vegetables,' was my reply. They countered with, 'Are you getting 10 servings a day? Because if you're not, you should be taking these.' I assured them that I was and therefore really didn't need what they were selling.

Since then, though, I've been really careful to make sure I'm getting my fruits and veggies every day. I don't always get 10, but I try to get at least five, in order to stay true to my word, and true to my health.

I'm curious, do you always get the recommended daily amount of fruits and veggies?

If you are a disciple of Atkins, South Beach, the Zone, or any other restrictive diet plan, this post won't pertain to you. However, if every now again you like to indulge in a good cookie, read on.

Question: Ever ate so many cookies you just got tired of them?

Of course not.

Because, duh, cookies rule and the folks who make Girl Scout Cookies agree. They've made it their mission to provide the tasty treats to Girl Scouts to sell to us each and every year. In fact, the act of selling the cookies is directly related to helping all girls realize their full potential enabling them to become strong, confident, and resourceful citizens. Ironically, the act of eating the cookies can do quite the opposite for us, so buy the cookies to help fund a good organization and sell the cookies to become independent and learn business, but otherwise read the labels and know the serving size before downing a box of the yummy treats -- although who eats only two cookies?

You can expect to see Girl Scout cookies for sale right after the holidays.

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It doesn't have to be only your husband you help with issues of the prostate. It can be any guy you know who might use a little assistance. And the only guidance you need to offer the men in your life is this: eat six servings of vegetables every day and you'll be less likely to develop an enlarged prostate.

Accomplishing six servings is not as big an undertaking as you might imagine. A serving can be as small as a half cup of cooked vegetables, six baby carrots, or half a cup of spaghetti sauce. Sound simple? Good. Now spread the word.

For more on what constitutes a serving, take a look at this site.

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We do this at my house -- we serve our food from the stove. When we make turkey meatballs, for example, we scoop our servings right from the pan onto each of the four plates that sit at our dinner table each night. Then we dish veggies onto our plates right from the steamer. Then we sit, and eat, and rarely get up for more.

I never knew our practice was a healthy one -- until I came across this website and read the following note at the bottom:

Serve dinner from the stove, not family-style with bowls of food at the table. This discourages overeating and encourages controlled eating based on feelings of real hunger and satisfaction. This might clash with family tradition, but try it and see whether it doesn't help limit unconsciously eating second and third helpings.

Here we were operating from a less-dishes-to-wash standpoint. It was simply a matter of convenience for us to serve from the stove. Now that I know our dinner process is also good for our figures, I'll be sure to keep it up.

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I always find it easier to work the daily recommendation of 7 to 8 servings of fruit and vegetables into my meals during the summer. All sorts of fresh produce is in season at that time of year making it pretty simple to include a variety of fruits and veggies into meals or just as a quick snack.

Now that winter is approaching, it's a bit more difficult to incorporate tasty produce into your diet each day. Strawberries are one fruit that I love which can usually be found at the supermarket all year round. The superfood is great for you as it's full of fiber, folate, vitamin C and antioxidants, which look after your heart and help protect against cancer, among other benefits.

If you'd like to incorporate more of the ripe, red berry into your meals, why not try some of the strawberry-enhanced meal suggestions offered here. For breakfast you can enjoy an English muffin topped with low-fat cream cheese and fresh, sliced strawberries, add strawberries to your favorite salad at lunch and enjoy chicken, vegetable and strawberry kebabs at dinner.

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Most of us are aware that restaurants and food manufacturers have adopted the bad habit of supersizing meals, drinks, and snacks. What may surprise you is this: We're doing the same thing at our dinner tables. Food package, dishware, and even recipes have evolved to encourage us to eat more than we need. And it turns out that we are not good at pushing the extra portions away: Studies show that the more food we're given, the more we eat.

So how do you know how much is enough?

A portion is the amount of food you choose to eat. There is no standard portion and no single right or wrong portion size.

A serving, however, is a standard amount set by the U.S. government to provide advice about how much to eat or to identify how many calories and nutrients are needed. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's nutrition labels and MyPyramid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are good sources for serving sizes.

For example, a portion for you might be a sandwich made with two slices of bread and some meat. According to MyPyramid, that portion would equal two servings from the grain group and two servings from the meat group.

Tip: If you don't follow serving sizes, and instead make your own portions try trading in your 11-inch plates for 9-inch ones and you'll eat 18% percent few calories.

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How many servings of vegetables do you eat in a day? For most people it is way less than the suggested five-to-10 servings a day that are necessary for a healthy and balanced diet. Even five servings, which is the bare minimum as far as roughage goes, can be tough to achieve.

But as leafy greens, crunchy carrots and other tasty veggies can be helpful with very important things like lowering your risk of various cancers as well as heart disease, needless to say, it's important to try to get in those 10 servings. If you're having trouble finding ways to incorporate the necessary amount of vegetables into your diet, try one of these five delicious-looking salad recipes.

According to the article, each boasts at least half of the required daily veggie intake and if you also prepare the accompanying side dish, you'll have the maximum amount of servings munched up in a single meal.

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Fruits and vegetables are good for us, we all know that. So why do we have so much trouble getting enough of them? By some reports only 11% of people get the recommended number of servings on a daily basis, that's an embarrassingly low number!

Excuses, excuses, that seems to be the problem. Common excuses include it's just not convenient, veggies and fruits don't taste good, they cost too much, or they spoil too fast. Solutions? Keep fruit out where you can see it so it is convenient, try new kinds of fresh produce to see if you can't find something you like (or add it into foods you already enjoy like), buy frozen or (when possible) in-season to reduce cost, and drink juice or try dried fruit for longer-lasting options.

That's just a few of the several common excuses many people find themselves using, but thankfully there are also ideas on how to overcome them!

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Portions have been growing steadily over the past many years, and so have we. I was out to lunch with a co-worker the other day and she ordered country-fried chicken. When it arrived it was on a big oval plate (a platter, really) and had a hunk of breaded chicken with two huge scoops of mashed potatoes on either side, and so much gravy the waitress had to use two hands just to keep it from sloshing into someone's lap. Of course my friend complained it was "too much" and she'd "never be able to eat it all" but I couldn't help but think -- noticing how I could see some of my plate through my pile of fries -- that I'd somehow been jipped.

Can we change the perception of "bigger is better?" What is a normal serving size anyway? For meat, poultry, or fish use a deck of cards or the palm of your hand as a reference (about 3 ounces). Cooked veggies? A half cup, or just 3 brussell sprouts, is considered one serving. And most surprising to me is carbohydrates: 1 ounce, or the size of a hockey puck, is what the USDA recommends. That means most bakery bagels are really 3 or 4 servings packed into one tempting package.

Yikes!

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