How accurate are you?

4leighbee

47Jacqueline wrote: »

To the person who questioned the motivation of those posting here: Of course the people that respond to this post are more likely weighing and measuring. Who else would have posted here? If you want to find out who isn't doing this post a topic about who doesn't weigh and measure.

Hi - I wasn't questioning anyone's motives. She asked us all (by creating a thread on MFP) how accurate we were with counting our calories. I simply wanted her to remember that those who are uber-accurate will probably be the ones drawn to respond, so not to think the whole MFP world has a food scale front and center. For some of us (me!), that could create a lot of undue pressure. I could never be as diligent as you are. There's no offense in that. Have a great day!

ashleycde

I weigh everything I can. My partner makes a lot of jokes about it. If he's doing the cooking, I often sneak attack weigh things while he meal preps. Yesterday morning he asked if I wanted some veggie juice after he made himself some, before he was going to clean the juicer, and I snuck behind him to weigh the 2 carrots and beet he pulled out before he stuffed them in the juicer. If you are already weighing some foods, it's not a bad idea to get into the habit of weighing all foods, at least when you have your scale available to use. I consume a lot of fruits and vegetables, and they make up a large portion of my daily caloric intake, so you may be eating more than you think.

SwankyTomato

Since I am trying to lose, I have to weigh/measure. My calorie limit is 1280 and very difficult to maintain if I am not paying attention.

RaspberryTickleChicken

When I was losing I weigh everything that passed my lips.

Now in maintaining, I still tend to weigh most things.

Specifically in regards to OP's question about fruit & veggies:

Fruit I weigh religiously - I monitor my macros now more than overall & since fruits are typically higher in calories, carbs, and sugar I still keep a keen eye on it

Veggies I loosely monitor - veggies is my freebie & I can have as much as I want. I will measure out for example 2 cups but if I'm particularly famish I'll add some spinach leaves or more veggies mix (broccoli, carrots, mushroom, green peppers, green beans) & won't bother to count the extra.

Just to note - I don't drown my veggies in standard salad dressing. I pretty much give them a light toss in some EVOO and spices & that's about it.

leggup

I weigh everything that I eat at home. My work does fruit delivery, so I have to eyeball fruit about 2-3 times a week, usually just a banana or pear.

I eat a large quantity of fruits and veggies. On a given day, I eat about 300-600 calories in produce that I prepare. It would be too risky to over or under estimate my calories and end up over or undereating by a wide margin each day.

trianglevision

I don't weigh or measure fresh vegetables -just estimate. I don't want to ever restrict my vegetable intake and eat as much of them as I want.

With fruit I am more careful but never weigh stuff. I measure with cups and spoons. Mostly I just try not to eat a lot -I haven't felt totally full since I've started this and wake up famished every morning so I'm just going to assume I'm at a calorie defecit..well see how that goes!

TimothyFish

CarrieCans wrote: »

I forgot to mention before that the food scale is more than just for calorie counting.

Since i got a food scale, my homemade bread has been exactly the same every single time i bake it. It's how i always did it in food service yet i never bothered to get a scale at home. There's a reason why big kitchens use scales. Every time i made it before i had to take notes on how tight i packed each ingredient into the cups and even then my notes were subjective. How tight is tightly packed or how loose is loosely packed. Then there's measuring spoons and if they are packed, level, rounded etc.

Being able to weigh the ingredients makes it easier to experiment with recipes too !!! Some things really do need to be adjusted on a percentage and the scale does that for me.

I suppose that depends on how big of a kitchen we're talking about. I know large bakeries buy their ingredients in large bags and just dump the whole thing into the mixer. For me at home, if I measured, and certainly if I weighed, everything I put into a recipe, that would take the fun out of cooking. When I mess up a dish (which I do occasionally) it is due to the ingredients I chose to use, not the quantities.

Lourdesong

Very few recipes I come across use weight, most are by volume with cups and spoons and a dash of love. It's annoying, I feel like I have my fingers crossed the whole time hoping a disaster doesn't come out of my oven.

Revonue

I weigh most fruits but measure bananas (there is an option for small being around six inches, medium around seven and so on, so I use that one). I portion out vegetables according to size and not weight most of the time- for example, two five-inch stalks of celery. I don't measure lettuce because I simply refuse to, lol. And I am currently not weighing anything pre-packaged, but eat the serving size (so I trust that 25 crackers is 30 grams, etc).

Diaryofadillydallier

I do a little bit of both... I had a problem with eating more than a serving size so at first I weighed most things until I got more comfortable with my estimations...for example I weighed my grapes to take to work every morning...after awhile I was comfortable that a snack bag of grapes was 30g give or take a gram or two. It's all about how accurate you want to be. However I would suggest weighing things at first until you get used to what a serving size looks like. Some things can be quite surprising! now I only weigh things I'm unsure of.

Another good idea is to create a recipe for the things you cook rather than just using what is already in MFP, the difference in Cals can be crazy.

TimothyFish

Lourdesong wrote: »

Very few recipes I come across use weight, most are by volume with cups and spoons and a dash of love. It's annoying, I feel like I have my fingers crossed the whole time hoping a disaster doesn't come out of my oven.

Relax. Cooking is an art, not a science. The only reason recipes list cups and teaspoons and such is because it is hard to communicate with a pile of this, a handful of that, and a dash of something else.

sofaking6

lgutches wrote: »

47Jacqueline wrote: »

To the person who questioned the motivation of those posting here: Of course the people that respond to this post are more likely weighing and measuring. Who else would have posted here? If you want to find out who isn't doing this post a topic about who doesn't weigh and measure.

Hi - I wasn't questioning anyone's motives. She asked us all (by creating a thread on MFP) how accurate we were with counting our calories. I simply wanted her to remember that those who are uber-accurate will probably be the ones drawn to respond, so not to think the whole MFP world has a food scale front and center. For some of us (me!), that could create a lot of undue pressure. I could never be as diligent as you are. There's no offense in that. Have a great day!

Just for you, I will post in this thread and let everyone know that I don't weigh or measure anything unless it's for a recipe

AskTracyAnnK28

I don't weigh lettuce or single serving, pre-packaged frozen entree's/deserts/snacks.

Everything else goes on the food scale though

4leighbee

sofaking6 wrote: »

lgutches wrote: »

47Jacqueline wrote: »

To the person who questioned the motivation of those posting here: Of course the people that respond to this post are more likely weighing and measuring. Who else would have posted here? If you want to find out who isn't doing this post a topic about who doesn't weigh and measure.

Hi - I wasn't questioning anyone's motives. She asked us all (by creating a thread on MFP) how accurate we were with counting our calories. I simply wanted her to remember that those who are uber-accurate will probably be the ones drawn to respond, so not to think the whole MFP world has a food scale front and center. For some of us (me!), that could create a lot of undue pressure. I could never be as diligent as you are. There's no offense in that. Have a great day!

Just for you, I will post in this thread and let everyone know that I don't weigh or measure anything unless it's for a recipe

LOL ! xo
All good. I am 100% certain I am not crazy. (I think.)

busyemm

I weigh everything except my salad greens and am getting good at estimating my spinach. I weigh my protein powder for my smoothie and not rely on the scoop.

WalkingAlong

lgutches wrote: »

47Jacqueline wrote: »

To the person who questioned the motivation of those posting here: Of course the people that respond to this post are more likely weighing and measuring. Who else would have posted here? If you want to find out who isn't doing this post a topic about who doesn't weigh and measure.

Hi - I wasn't questioning anyone's motives. She asked us all (by creating a thread on MFP) how accurate we were with counting our calories. I simply wanted her to remember that those who are uber-accurate will probably be the ones drawn to respond, so not to think the whole MFP world has a food scale front and center. For some of us (me!), that could create a lot of undue pressure. I could never be as diligent as you are. There's no offense in that. Have a great day!

Me either. I weigh almost nothing, unless I'm doing an IF regimen that has 500 calorie days then I might weigh any meat I use then.

I have to balance accuracy with livability. I can't even log year 'round without wanting to go postal, much less weigh everything.

And my goal has always been to learn to 'wing it'. To do that, I have to practice. For me, that means using hunger cues and portioning cues and maybe even some general food rules, which I know doesn't suit everyone.

TimothyFish

During my most successful weight loss, I never logged or weighed anything. Every meal, I would allocate 500 calories and choose food accordingly. If I ate under or over 500 at a meal didn't matter, the next meal I had another 500. I was able to lose 80 lbs doing that.

ErinK09

I don't weigh my food.

chelllez

Weighing is a pain in the tooty, but I understand why I should do it.

CarrieCans

TimothyFish wrote: »

CarrieCans wrote: »

I forgot to mention before that the food scale is more than just for calorie counting.

Since i got a food scale, my homemade bread has been exactly the same every single time i bake it. It's how i always did it in food service yet i never bothered to get a scale at home. There's a reason why big kitchens use scales. Every time i made it before i had to take notes on how tight i packed each ingredient into the cups and even then my notes were subjective. How tight is tightly packed or how loose is loosely packed. Then there's measuring spoons and if they are packed, level, rounded etc.

Being able to weigh the ingredients makes it easier to experiment with recipes too !!! Some things really do need to be adjusted on a percentage and the scale does that for me.

I suppose that depends on how big of a kitchen we're talking about. I know large bakeries buy their ingredients in large bags and just dump the whole thing into the mixer. For me at home, if I measured, and certainly if I weighed, everything I put into a recipe, that would take the fun out of cooking. When I mess up a dish (which I do occasionally) it is due to the ingredients I chose to use, not the quantities.

I used to follow those recipes and i had to work a mixer that was taller than i am. Kitchen policy was to weigh everything even if the bag was marked. I was fit back then, nothing like a workout of lifting 50 lb bags of flour all day.

I also worked at a pizza chain where we made large batches of dough and everything was weighed there too. From all of the ingredients that went into the mixer to each pan of pizza dough before it went to rise. If there was a customer complaint about dough quality then it was a "write up" for that days mixer. Now i believe that particular chain has all of their dough made in a factory and shipped to each store.