Logging accuracy, consistency, and you're probably eating more than you think.
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MoiAussi93 wrote: »I know I do not eat exactly the number of calories that my log shows. However, I think I am pretty close, especially on a weekly basis. Since logging regularly the past few months my weight loss has picked up significantly, so I am confident I am reasonably accurate.
I do not have or want a scale, so I weigh nothing. I do measure many foods. My veggies are frozen. If a bag of broccoli has 5 servings and I eat the entire thing in a week, whether I had 1.3 servings Monday and .7 servings on Tuesday, or exactly one serving each day, by the time the bag is empty it is exactly 5 servings. The frozen chicken breasts I buy come in a bag with 10 servings but only 5 or 6 breasts. Not all are exactly the same size, but I call each breast two servings. But I have chicken almost every day...in the course of a week or 10 days, I will have exactly 10 4-ounce servings...this is good enough for my purposes and doesn't take much time or effort on my part. Anything that is high calorie...olive oil or or peanut butter I measure by the spoonful. I count individual almonds. Usually I just eyeball the broccoli, because when something is 25 calories per serving, whether you have one serving or two doesn't mean much in the big scheme of things.
I do know that I record every single bite of food I take...so the only error in my case in not estimating quantity perfectly but I am not far off and this evens out over a week or two. So while it is nicer to lose 1.6 pounds in a week than 1.4 pounds, as long as I am consistently losing in that range I am not worried. Being off by 100 calories a day, or even two hundred, will not dramatically impact weight loss.
If it works for you, congratulations. However, I am terrible at eyeballing portions, so a scale is necessary for me.0 -
karintalley wrote: »draco25000 wrote: »Do you guys ever go on 'diet' breaks, like I have around 2-3kg left to lose, and sometimes for a week I'll just eat maintenance calories and then go back to eating at a deficit the next week. (I'm going to also do this week beginning 22nd December so I can enjoy the holidays ^^) I know it slows down weight loss, but I find it quite easy and flexible to do, and it makes losing weight seem natural, I dunno haha
When I first started and lost my weight over about a year, I had a couple of diet breaks (and there are some 'natural' times to take them - over the holidays, vacations etc). I found they were very useful to get my hormones back into whack and just give myself a mental break. It helped with adherence over the longer term. I took one every three to four months and did them for 2 weeks.
You did a diet break 2 weeks?
Sorry, just saw this. Yes, my diet breaks were about 2 weeks long.
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My problem is we make homemade stuff alot. For dinner we might just throw random stuff in a Crockpot not measuring anything. How do i log that? Even if i measure how am i gonna know how many calories or protein or sodium thats in it or that im eating?0
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Courtneycox17 wrote: »My problem is we make homemade stuff alot. For dinner we might just throw random stuff in a Crockpot not measuring anything. How do i log that? Even if i measure how am i gonna know how many calories or protein or sodium thats in it or that im eating?
What I do now, and I admit it is a PITA that I hope to get rid of when I get to maintenance, is to weigh each ingredient I toss in the pot, and then divide by the number of likely servings. A 3qt crock pot of soup full to the brim has 6 two cup servings -- two cups being the size of my soup bowls. Matter of fact, I did exactly this today for a soup I made.
It's not exact, but it's pretty close.1 -
Courtneycox17 wrote: »My problem is we make homemade stuff alot. For dinner we might just throw random stuff in a Crockpot not measuring anything. How do i log that? Even if i measure how am i gonna know how many calories or protein or sodium thats in it or that im eating?
For home made foods that are portioned out - I usually weigh as I put it in the bowl using the recipe builder to log the ingredients- then when mixed, weigh the entire amount - then just put that as the number of portions and log it that way. So if its say 450g, I put in 450 portions and then as I use it, I weigh what I use - say its 100g - put that as my portion size - so in this case, 100 portions. May look odd in your diary, but I find it easier.
Obviously, when you have something like a stew, each portion will not have a consistent mix, but its as close to accurate as you probably need considering the circumstances.0 -
Oh my goodness, yes! I just started measuring my milk and I've been drinking 2.5 times what I thought I was!0
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I have a question. Being new to this mfp. The set caloric intake for my goal weight... do I need to eat less than that or as close without going over it as possible? Also when I log exercising times it adds extra calories for me to eat... should I eat those extra or stick with my originally set calories0
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I have a question. Being new to this mfp. The set caloric intake for my goal weight... do I need to eat less than that or as close without going over it as possible? Also when I log exercising times it adds extra calories for me to eat... should I eat those extra or stick with my originally set calories
When you set your goals, it would have asked you how much you want to lose, and would have factored that in - so the goal is what you need to eat to (and still lose weight). You should eat those exercise calorie back, but I would recommend only eating a percentage of them (say 50 - 75%) to allow for any over-estimates in the calculations.
See how you go and after a while, assess the trend (look at trends as water weight can confuse things) to see if your loss is at a reasonable rate.0 -
Thanks for your info!0
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One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
I would argue that a lot of people get 'convenience' or 'fast' foods quite a bit - I doubt that most people eating out a TON out restaurants. At least, that is not my impression based on how empty they are mid-week.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
Yes but "most" people do not track their calories or exercise. When I say most I'm specifically referring to the population of people who are trying to lose weight and exercising and tracking their calories.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
I would argue that a lot of people get 'convenience' or 'fast' foods quite a bit - I doubt that most people eating out a TON out restaurants. At least, that is not my impression based on how empty they are mid-week.
I'm counting fast food and take out as restaurant food.
And when it comes to mid-week, well, I'd challenge you to find parking at any of the restaurants in a 5 mile radius of my office between 11-2 any weekday.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
I would argue that a lot of people get 'convenience' or 'fast' foods quite a bit - I doubt that most people eating out a TON out restaurants. At least, that is not my impression based on how empty they are mid-week.
I'm counting fast food and take out as restaurant food.
And when it comes to mid-week, well, I'd challenge you to find parking at any of the restaurants in a 5 mile radius of my office between 11-2 any weekday.
Not sure where you live - but that's not the case where I live.
In any event, I was assuming that you were referring to non 'fast food/take out/convenience' type places as that was the context of the post in the chain. As you are talking about all 'eating places' - then I would not necessarily disagree that a lot of people in the US (and other countries) eat out quite a lot.0 -
Most people I know, even those that are trying to lose weight, eat out several times a week. Husband and I only eat out 2 or 3 times a week, and that's very, very low for where I live. Most people eat a lot of fast food (which we rarely eat), but that's eating out. For example, Subway. . .I've known people who eat Subway several times a week while trying to lose weight, and the amount of dressing Subway says is on their salads and subs is quite a bit less than what is on a typical sub or salad (at least around here).0
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »Most people I know, even those that are trying to lose weight, eat out several times a week. Husband and I only eat out 2 or 3 times a week, and that's very, very low for where I live. Most people eat a lot of fast food (which we rarely eat), but that's eating out. For example, Subway. . .I've known people who eat Subway several times a week while trying to lose weight, and the amount of dressing Subway says is on their salads and subs is quite a bit less than what is on a typical sub or salad (at least around here).
Ok. Well for people who do eat out frequently they'll certainly need to be aware of the possible additional calories they may be consuming and they should make an effort to adjust for that.
I don't disagree that it can become problematic for people who eat out frequently.
This discussion is interesting though, I'd be interested what's "average" in terms of frequency. Were I to guess, I would think 2-3 times/week is fairly normal.0 -
snarlingcoyote wrote: »Most people I know, even those that are trying to lose weight, eat out several times a week. Husband and I only eat out 2 or 3 times a week, and that's very, very low for where I live. Most people eat a lot of fast food (which we rarely eat), but that's eating out. For example, Subway. . .I've known people who eat Subway several times a week while trying to lose weight, and the amount of dressing Subway says is on their salads and subs is quite a bit less than what is on a typical sub or salad (at least around here).
Ok. Well for people who do eat out frequently they'll certainly need to be aware of the possible additional calories they may be consuming and they should make an effort to adjust for that.
I don't disagree that it can become problematic for people who eat out frequently.
This discussion is interesting though, I'd be interested what's "average" in terms of frequency. Were I to guess, I would think 2-3 times/week is fairly normal.
2-3 times a week counting all fast food, take out, restaurants (fast food and take out is JUST as hard to properly count as sitting in the place) and ALL meals? If you're only counting people who are actively trying to lose weight maybe. If you're looking at everyone then no way.
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
I would argue that a lot of people get 'convenience' or 'fast' foods quite a bit - I doubt that most people eating out a TON out restaurants. At least, that is not my impression based on how empty they are mid-week.
I'm counting fast food and take out as restaurant food.
And when it comes to mid-week, well, I'd challenge you to find parking at any of the restaurants in a 5 mile radius of my office between 11-2 any weekday.
Not sure where you live - but that's not the case where I live.
Wait how do you know if you aren't going out?
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snarlingcoyote wrote: »One thing that is very hard to account for, and frustrating, is that even if you weigh and measure everything that goes into your mouth at home, when you eat out those counts go out the window. Restaurant nutritional information is amazingly inaccurate. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the information off a website, then gone to the actual restaurant and realized that the food I was served had way more cheese or butter or dressing or sauce than the nutritionals obviously allowed for. I was just at a restaurant for a meeting and the kitchen didn't have enough meals prepared for our meeting (despite knowing exact counts a month beforehand) so I got mine boxed up to go. The restaurant's website says a shrimp remoulade salad comes with 2 T of dressing. I was handed 2 1/4 cups of dressing, so I asked and the waitress said "that's two scoops of the serving spoon that's in the dressing. That's what we put on the salad. Two scoops."
Yes, it can be quite inaccurate and that's just something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I do think though that for "most" people the frequency with which restaurant eating occurs, isn't high enough to create significant barriers to weight loss due to caloric inaccuracies.
Really? *most* people (in the US anyway) eat out a TON.
I would argue that a lot of people get 'convenience' or 'fast' foods quite a bit - I doubt that most people eating out a TON out restaurants. At least, that is not my impression based on how empty they are mid-week.
I'm counting fast food and take out as restaurant food.
And when it comes to mid-week, well, I'd challenge you to find parking at any of the restaurants in a 5 mile radius of my office between 11-2 any weekday.
Not sure where you live - but that's not the case where I live.
Wait how do you know if you aren't going out?
I am assuming this is not a serious question from the smiley face.0 -
I add 100 calories a day 'grace' along with slightly over measuring any carb portion. I also don't add in any resistance training in terms of calories (it's near impossible to accurately measure those anyway).
As long as I don't use that 'grace' as an excuse, I feel I'm logging fairly.0 -
Just for what it's worth, since discussion broke out about restaurant frequency I decided to post a little survey to solicit some responses.
There certainly appears to be a wide range of variability in terms of restaurant (including fast food) frequency.
I do think that most fast food places would probably have more accurate calorie reporting since the product you get at most fast food places is more consistent from location to location. Chipotle would probably be an exception but places like McDonalds I would think you'd get relatively consistent products and somewhat accurate calorie counts.
At any rate though, I'm going to link to the thread for those people who were discussing it in this thread. I didn't run averages or anything but I speculate ~3-4/week being a reasonable average. I would have originally guessed 2-3.
You can check out the answers here:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10047440/how-often-do-you-eat-restaurant-food#Item_360 -
Thank you for your information i totally Agree with your viewpoint and experience.0
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I always try to overestimate the amount of food I log just to be safe. If by the end if the day I still feel hungry, I just eat a few watery veggies like cucumbers or tomatoes to fill myself up.
Am currently eating 1200 calories/day as well as go to the gym 4 times a week and the weight is dropping by the day. And the best part about it is that I can eat anything as long as I don't go over my daily budget. :disagree:0 -
I keep my MFP food journal as accurate as possible. However, I believe that my MFP exercise journal isn't accurate. I don't think I burn as much calories as it says.0
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I did this also now I try to overestimate my intake and I try to underestimate my exercise.0
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I used to do that. Pain in the rear! Grams into ounces, ounces into the serving size. Ugh.lynn_glenmont wrote: »
You also can't assume that because an entry in someone's diary lists the measurement in cups that the person doesn't weigh their food. I use many entries from the database that are accurate (i.e., match the package label), but the person who created them used the volume measurement rather than the weight measurement when both are given on the package, e.g., 1/2 cup (113 g) for cottage cheese. I can weigh my cottage cheese and divide by the grams in a serving size to determine how much I'm serving myself, and still use that entry, and it doesn't mean I'm being inaccurate.Good point, especially these above. People often think they can look at someone's diary and tell how well they're logging based on the units of measure and such, but a reader has no way of knowing what they didn't log, which is probably a bigger source of error than using a cup measurement vs. a scale.
I just hate to say people think that using a food scale automatically means good logging, and that not using one automatically means bad.
If you manually enter the cottage cheese into "My Foods" with the grams, not only can you enter grams, but the option for One Gram will magically appear, so then you can just enter the 89 or whatever it is. And it will always be in My Foods.
I mention this only because I found it so helpful and not to criticize you!
I second this. It really is a lot easier, though annoying and time consuming initially. I also weigh and calculate the calories for each ingredient in a couple of recipes I use often and add them as one entry, making sure to use the same portions each time. I know there's a recipe generator application as part of MFP but sometimes it's just nice to see the portobello mushroom and chicken lettuce wraps I made last week, as opposed to a list of 15 individual ingredients.0
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