Feast days. A question about weighing food

MzShelleRenea

One thing I have read a lot on MFP is the importance of a food scale. My plan was to buy one tomorrow. However, now that I'm doing 5:2 that does seem like it may be pointless? I have no intention to binge on my non-fast days. I plan to still stick to eating good for me foods and sticking w/i a realistic calorie budget. But is it necessary to weight my food down to the ounce now? MY TDEE is right under 2200 calories. I currently eat between 15-1600. I plan to stay there. I did all the weekly math and counting my 2 Fast Days, 15-1600 keeps me at a decent deficient while also keeping me satiated.

So, just curious on opinions regarding food scales. Thanks!

JillyCornwall

Well I'm afraid I now weigh & measure absolutely everything that i eat with no exceptions. i found that I was wildly underestimating the calories I was eating. Healthy food can still push your calories way over TDEE. I mean unless you only eat individually packaged processed food , how do you know you eat 1500-1600 calories if you have not weighed everything, you are only guestimating..which can be soooo wrong.

MzShelleRenea

I did some more reading in between the time from when I posted until you answered and realized, I do need to weigh. I'm going to grab a scale tomorrow. Thank you for your reply.

flumi_f

I weigh most everything every day. If I don't, I underestimate my portions after a while. I cook most things from scratch, so I weigh what goes in raw and divide it by the number of portions I get out of it. I tend to cook in batches in order to have leftovers ;-)

If you can pull it off without counting on non fast days, you are not obligated to weigh or count. It's just, that not everyone can get away with that.

jknight001

It can be easy to misjudge the more calorie dense foods like meats and nuts. If you are great at eyeballing things go for it. But it might help to do it at least for awhile until you are confident you can estimate what you are eating without weighing and measuring.

karen_fitzgibbon

I weigh a lot of my foods. I'm getting into the habit of weighing more and more. It's unbelievable the amount I underestimated

MzShelleRenea

I ordered a scale today. It will be here on Thursday.

Foamroller

Brace yourself for a sobering experience in how little 10g of peanut butter is...

When I started to weigh foods about 1.5 years ago I was truly shocked that I used to have 400g of rice in one sitting...

Tip: Measure in grams. Add "raw" or "usda" after vegetables and look for gram unit. Cups and ounces are volumetric, not accounting for density.

sijomial

Suggested serving sizes are a joke when you are a greedy bugger like me! Found it quite revealing to see the "hidden" calories that can sneak up on you.
I'm more relaxed about eyeballing things at maintenance than when I was losing but tend to still weigh calorie dense things like nuts, cheese and breakfast cereals.

One hidden benefit of weighing is that I can make my porridge completely consistently by weighing - so no more eruptions in the microwave!

snaps27

sijomial wrote: »

Suggested serving sizes are a joke when you are a greedy bugger like me! Found it quite revealing to see the "hidden" calories that can sneak up on you.
quote]

This was so true for me with cereal...I mean one serving size is like a joke, so this definitely is something I have to weigh and keep a close eye on.

thecarbmonster

Ooo I'm in love with my food scale!!! I think a good part of 5:2 for me is tuning more into TDEE vs eating anything and everything. Use the food scale as a took to change your perspective on portions. Old portion sizes that I never felt left me satisfied are now half the size and fill me up because my mental portion sizes/what should satisfy me has changed. I weigh everything!!!!

MzShelleRenea

Thanks everyone. Tomorrow is a fast day for me but for fun, I may still weigh a few things I eat frequently. I did use measuring cups before or measuring spoons, but I still believe this will be eye opening.
And I made sure the scale does grams since I've read that's the best and most accurate unit of measurement.

jknight001

Foamroller wrote: »

Tip: Measure in grams. Add "raw" or "usda" after vegetables and look for gram unit. Cups and ounces are volumetric, not accounting for density.

Great tip! Sometimes it can be a challenge to find calories for something by weight on MFP. I'll try this one.

flumi_f

jknight001 wrote: »

Foamroller wrote: »

Tip: Measure in grams. Add "raw" or "usda" after vegetables and look for gram unit.

^^This
Also foods in the list without an * are approved and have lots of unit possibilites to choose from.