success without a food scale

mantium999

accidentalpancake wrote: »

mantium999 wrote: »

accidentalpancake wrote: »

mantium999 wrote: »

accidentalpancake wrote: »

No scale. Minimize packaged and fast foods and cook 95% of meals at home.

Weighing may be helpful, but you'll know you can maintain for life when you don't have to.

Are the calorie estimates on packaged foods worse than guessing the weight of your steak or fruit or veggies? If it's all guesswork anyway, for the sake of making life easier, would it not be easier to estimate consumption by barcode scanning if you aren't going to weigh?

I'm not getting into a useless debate over it, but I'm interested in the quality of the food, not just the calorie count (which is actually a distant concern).

If all you're looking for is counting calories, packaged food is just fine, I'm sure.

Then why mention it in the first place, considering the OP mentioned nothing about seeking advice on quality of food? She is looking to make logging easy. Also, you label packaged food as though it's by default lower quality. Would cheese slices, packaged in a way that the nutrition facts are listed on the front, be less valuable that a block of cheese that you have to cut yourself? Same applies to sliced meats, or bottles of milk, or a jar of pickles.

OP asked whether people weigh or not.

Not everything needs to be a fight, even on the Internet.

It would be useful then for you to not add contentious topics when responding to a question. You made a blanket statement that is irrelevant to, and possibly opposing the primary objective of why the OP asked the question they did. A more valuable response would be "if you don't want to weigh, you can look for nutritionally beneficial foods that are pre-packaged so that you can estimate your calories in an easier manner". Instead, you broadly imply that packaged is bad.

ejbronte

I've been able to lose without a scale and with cups - I was more than halfway through my weight-loss project before looking at these discussions and learning about using a scale. However, I recently did get one, and am enjoying the process of guessing and weighing. I've been pretty good at it so far, and attribute it to having enjoyed cooking for a few years; portion calculation must have been osmosed into my brain.

mantium999

UltimateRBF wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

You don't have to weigh anything. If you are supposed to eat 1400 calories and you're guessing on amounts and not losing, you might be eating 1500-1700. Lower your goal number. Just change the goal to 1300, 1200, 1000 - whatever it takes until you do start losing. If you think you're eating 1100 calories a day, but you're really eating 1400, who cares? If weight loss is the goal and you are losing weight, yay.

If you want the most accurate estimate because the numbers are important to you, weigh the food. It will get you the best estimate. You learn a lot about food when you weigh it, too. It's a helpful tool.

But if it seems to obsessive or time-consuming, just don't. It's not necessary. People lost weight before anyone on the planet knew what a calorie was. It can be done. I lost 40 pounds without even counting calories.

There are many ways to do this.

Wouldn't it just be way more efficient to track your intake accurately rather than just repeatedly stabbing in the dark when you hit a bump in the road?

Agreed. I could fire a bunch of rounds in a pitch black shooting range and maybe I might hit the target. Or I could turn the lights on. Efficiency makes life easier.

DawnieB1977

I lost 66lbs after my 2nd baby without weighing everything, so it worked for me. However, I aimed for quite low calories, and don't eat back exercise calories, so even if I'd underestimated I would've had a big deficit anyway.

I'm losing after my third baby now and I've been using a food scale since I was pregnant. My weight loss has been at pretty much the same rate as it was when I didn't use a food scale.

I've got into the habit of using it now, but I don't feel it's necessary.

lalainap19

You guys are great thanks for the helpful tips I have 34 pounds to reach my goal u all will help me get there

lalainap19

Asher_Ethan wrote: »

I started losing weight without a scale... then I went 2 weeks without losing anything so i decided to just try the scale. I have to weigh everything now... It's definitely an eye opener for me.

This is exactly what I'm going through now which is why I wondered about getting a scale I've been stuck at 161 for 2 weeks.

megantischner

I lost weight without using a food scale (slow, but fairly steady); I probably would have lost faster had I used one.

kshama2001

slaite1 wrote: »

I started off without a food scale and can lose without one. I'm a decent estimator and would also spend time portioning out my food.

But I LOVE having a good scale, and it actually saves me time. I never have to stress about how much I'm eating. "Does that look like half?" "Wait-how many serving of yogurt have I had?" And so on. Plus now I eat whatever I want and can be confident I am tracking correctly-which makes it super easy to add or subtract foods as necessary.

Much like using MFP-it just takes some getting used to. It now takes me all of 20 seconds who weigh and log a meal. I'm a convert

Ditto to most (20 seconds seems a little short.)

momar23

I'm losing 5-6 lbs a month without a scale and I very rarely use measuring cups or spoons either. I do suspect that once I get closer to goal I may need to get a scale. But I tend to eat a lot of the same stuff. If I measure something once I'm good eyeballing it the next time I eat it:

LaceyBirds

I have had success not using a food scale and using one. I have found that, even after 84 days of MFP logging, I am terrible at eyeballing my portions, so I'm using the scale more and more. I still use measuring spoons and cups, but am starting to use the scale more often. The longer I use it, the more streamlined my measuring skills get, and it is taking me much less time now than it first did. I have found that it is actually fun for me to use the scale, I like the exactness of it.

(Without derailing, hopefully, somebody could let me know how to measure mayonnaise without using a measure spoon).

Ninkyou

I started without a scale but I really wanted to maximize my potential and loss so I went ahead and got one. I have to be honest, I was REALLY hesitant before buying one. I was worried it would be tedious and also time consuming. But once I started weighing, I actually found it was neither. And I agree, you have less dirty measuring cups. Soooo much better. Weighing really doesn't take much time at all.

cwolfman13

lalainap19 wrote: »

Yes I definitely hate all the dirty measuring cups I just use so many ingredients when I cook so I hate the thought of weighing all the veggies

I don't bother weighing out things like veggies which aren't very calorie dense...I still weigh calorie dense items...like 2 ounces dried spaghetti (220 calories) for example...how do I estimate that without throwing it on a scale? Nuts are another big one for me as I snack on almonds pretty much daily...before I used a food scale I just packed myself up a good handful to take to work with me as that's what someone told me was a serving; it turns out that one handful for me is about 2 ounces, so I was logging 160 calories and eating 320.

When people are having trouble losing weight it's not likely due to not weighing veggies...it's because they're incorrectly estimating their servings of calorie dense food items.

cwolfman13

accidentalpancake wrote: »

No scale. Minimize packaged and fast foods and cook 95% of meals at home.

Weighing may be helpful, but you'll know you can maintain for life when you don't have to.

a lot of whole foods are also calorie dense...not just fast food and packaged foods. I eat very healthfully and cook most things from scratch...but I still eat a lot of calorie dense foods for which a scale can be beneficial.

whmscll

WBB55 wrote: »

Honestly, the logging takes way more time than weighing. Weighing takes no time. You have to put food on the plate, just a put a scale under it first. Finding entries in the database takes longer for me. YMMV

This! It takes forever, especially if you're inputting a recipe. That's why I don't weigh pre-packaged items. If I wasn't losing I might start to weigh EVERTYHING, but I've weighed pre-packaged stuff a few times and the weights were always within 3-4 grams. When I'm hungrey I want to EAT, not fool around with a scale an app for 10 minutes. Or even 5 minutes.

accidentalpancake

cwolfman13 wrote: »

accidentalpancake wrote: »

No scale. Minimize packaged and fast foods and cook 95% of meals at home.

Weighing may be helpful, but you'll know you can maintain for life when you don't have to.

a lot of whole foods are also calorie dense...not just fast food and packaged foods. I eat very healthfully and cook most things from scratch...but I still eat a lot of calorie dense foods for which a scale can be beneficial.

I've found it easier to learn the nutrient and caloric impact of what I eat, which takes care of that. Quality and calorie density vary greatly across all foods. I don't minimize packaged foods because of density, and I don't weigh because I have a good handle on my nutritional needs.

Again, scales are great as a learning tool, but they aren't required for success, as many have noted.

justrollme

ermand wrote: »

It takes me on average 40 seconds to weigh my food per meal. That includes measuring each type of food i'm putting on my plate. I don't understand why people think it is time consuming.

^ This.

I'm a beginner at all of this stuff, and the first thing I did was buy a cute little digital scale. It's very simple and quick. After time, this will undoubtedly help me to estimate if I'm out, etc. Personally, I think it's worth it to log everything, at least to start out. I use it as a motivational thing, too. It feels really nice to look back on a day and be happy that I ate healthy, which makes me want to keep it up.

zoeysasha37

Op , as you lose your deficit will become smaller and weighing your foods to be as accurate as possible will be something you'll want to do . It takes me a few mins per day

spatulamom

Somebody_Loved wrote: »

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

Some things a way before. Like when i make a recipe here in MFP and i divede it in serving sizes
But most of the time i just put my plate on the scale
Turn it on ( it will start at zero then)
put on veggies..write down the weight and zero it out again ( TARA button) put on meat. write it down ( and zero it out) Put on potatoes, write it down and zero out etc etc done just a few seconds

I had no idea you could do this until someone posted about it last week. I think this is why people think weighing is time consuming - because they don't know how to efficiently use a food scale. Mine was sitting on my counter hardly being used before I found out that function last week. Now I use it daily!

I use my scale religiously, but have never even thought about doing it this way. This would have made weighing everything for my turkey tacos a lot easier tonight.

Kexessa

Like most things I think everyone is different and finds different ways to achieve the same goal. For me, I am now using a scale for about half of my food items. Most vegetables or pre-portioned items like a wrap I don't. For my "problem" foods that I discovered I simply can not eyeball I weigh. Things like peanut butter, hummus, salad dressing, avocado, cheese, beans and rice, those types of things I have to weigh. Broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, sugar snap peas, yellow squash, those type of things I don't bother. I couldn't over eat them to make a significant dent in my calorie allotment each day.

daniwilford

I am a big fan of accurate data. I like analyzing what works so I can do more of it. If I am not getting the expected or desired result, I have something to look at and tweak. I use as accurate and varied measurements as I can to get to my goal.