Question about weighing and measuring...How to not be embarrassed?

pilotsroo

I really do want to do this properly but someone please tell me how long you have to measure everything? I know it sounds childish and silly, BUT I can't help but feel a little embarrassed measuring everything! Do you have to do it forever? How do you go about measuring your food? What about eating out?

amusedmonkey

I weigh and measure my food when at home, and eyeball it when I'm out. It works pretty well for me. Your really don't need to obsess or run around with your food scale everywhere, just try to be reasonably accurate whenever you can afford to be.

You could also pick up the habit of pre-packing your meals for a few days to come measuring, weighing and tracking everything in advance. This way you will only need to measure a couple of days a week for example, only tweaking and adding if you happen to have something spontaneous outside of your pre-planned meals. When I cook something like soup or stew I just throw all the calories into one day, even if I will be eating the meal for a few days to come. Of course that will only work if you track a weekly amount of calories rather than daily.

pilotsroo

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I weigh and measure my food when at home, and eyeball it when I'm out. It works pretty well for me. Your really don't need to obsess or run around with your food scale everywhere, just try to be reasonably accurate whenever you can afford to be.

You could also pick up the habit of pre-packing your meals for a few days to come measuring, weighing and tracking everything in advance. This way you will only need to measure a couple of days a week for example, only tweaking and adding if you happen to have something spontaneous outside of your pre-planned meals. When I cook something like soup or stew I just throw all the calories into one day, even if I will be eating the meal for a few days to come. Of course that will only work if you track a weekly amount of calories rather than daily.

Cheers thank you for your helpful reply!! I am planning on buying a digital scale and at least measuring at home.

malibu927

I got over the embarrassing factor pretty quickly. Some people are able to weigh for a couple weeks/months, then they have a good sense of portion size and can eyeball it. I don't have that, so I've been weighing food at home for nearly two years and will continue to indefinitely.

missh1967

I weigh and measure at home only. I always bring my own food to work so I know exactly what and how much I'm eating. When out, I just try to be careful of my portion sizes. If I eat at a chain restaurant, I'll find what I'm eating online and log it.

Phrick

I weigh and measure at home, never when at a restaurant, sometimes at a friend's house if THEY already own a kitchen scale. Rather than treat it as a weight loss tool I started out looking at it more like an experiment: How accurate are my eyeballs, really? Can I improve my guessing skills? Then later - what about packaged foods, how many prepackaged items actually weigh what the package states? That helped with any embarrassment factor, initially. I also kind of eased into it, I only weighed meats at first, then whole foods (because WTH is a "medium" apple anyway??), then I saw that the FDA allows a 20% +/- on prepackaged foods so I started weighing those too.

Plus, I long ago discovered that cooking & baking by weights rather than measure cups brings me a great deal of satisfaction (it feeds my love of perfection, haha). A weight is a weight, it's never subjective. You can't accidentally over-pack 200g of flour, but you can easily over-pack a 1c measure, for example. So any time I cook or bake my scale has a prominent place on the counter. It helps to ensure a uniform end product every time. Since I do a LOT of scratch cooking (several times a day, some days!) I sometimes get questions from guests but it's so easy to explain and I have never received negative feedback about it.

booksandchocolate12

Why are you embarrassed? Are you whipping out a scale and measuring cups in a restaurant and making a big production out of weighing everything?

I weigh and measure at home, and use my best judgment when I'm away from home. The good news is, the more you weigh your food, the better you should get at guessing. However, I'm one of those people who will have to do it forever. I know from past experience that if I stop weighing my food, after a while "portion creep" sets in, where my portions get slightly bigger, and bigger, until I'm eating way too much.

Ninkyou

I never weigh while eating out or at family/friend dinners.

That being said, don't be embarrassed. Does eating with a spoon make you embarrassed? Think of the scale as a utensil/tool just the same as silverware.

wanda601

I, too, have found that "eyeballing" it all the time tends to lead to larger portions and more calories than I think I'm eating. I measure at home but when I know I'm going out to eat, I check their menu on-line ahead of time and figure out what I can have. That way you just order it and no one questions "Are you on a diet?" or "C'mon, you can have more, etc." I just tell them I'm not really too hungry right now.

cnbbnc

There's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean...did you realize what proper portions of food looked like before putting them on a scale? I sure didn't! I was sitting down with 3 servings of ice cream in the evening, 2 portions of pasta... I was shocked to see how small a serving of rice and peanut butter really is! I had no idea how much I was consuming. People are asking me how I'm losing weight, and the answer is my scale.

evinston

I am one of those people who faced the fact that I need to weigh and measure long into the foreseeable future. At home, I weigh and measure everything! Eyeballing when out works for me if I don't eat out too much. But, my weight loss will come to a screeching halt if I eyeball all the time.

kellellie

missh1967 wrote: »

I weigh and measure at home only. I always bring my own food to work so I know exactly what and how much I'm eating. When out, I just try to be careful of my portion sizes. If I eat at a chain restaurant, I'll find what I'm eating online and log it.

This. I measure at home, and bring my own food to work every day. If we go out, I look up their menu online first to see what my options are, and plug that into mfp and play around with it to see what I can fit into my day and what I can't. That being said I go out to eat very rarely. Occasionally i'll have a stint where I get lax on my measuring at home (especially with rice, i'll be all like oh yeah that's TOTALLY 100 grams) and then I have to remind myself to keep it up. I hate to beat the dead horse, but the scale really honestly is the most important part of this. No need to be embarrassed about it, if anything it was very interesting to me to see what a serving actually is.

wizzybeth

I find the embarrassed part puzzling.

I have a food scale at my office because 4 of us share one large office and we have our own mini fridge, microwave, toaster oven, etc. So I have a cheapo food scale that I keep there so I can weigh my stuff there if it's not something prepackaged like a lean cuisine meal or something. Otherwise, I ONLY weigh / measure stuff at home. Never when I go out to eat anywhere else.

When I go out I take the best guesstimate I can. On days like Thanksgiving, I didn't even try - I logged only my breakfast because it was the same thing I eat nearly every day (I'm a creature of habit and until I get sick of this breakfast, it's what I'll eat most days, I'm even packing up 4 days worth of breakfast to take with me next week when I go out of town on a business trip, ha!!)

When you are as accurate as possible MOST of the time, it isn't such a big deal on the occasions where you have to guess.

Laughter_Girl

I LOVE my food scale and plan to use it forever, but I only use it at home. If I'm at a friend's house that owns a food scale, I ask to use it. I'm not embarrassed at all because it's not about what others think. I'm doing what I need to do for my health, and those that are close to me already know this and are supportive. Besides, several of my family and friends are on their own health journeys and don't have time to worry about me. When I'm dining out, I just eyeball it. I don't eat out as frequently as I use to prior to losing weight (generally about 1 time a week now) because I have large eyeballs and can easily overeat. Ha!

Do what you have to live and be healthy. You might be surprised who you inspire along the way.

Lounmoun

pilotsroo wrote: »

I really do want to do this properly but someone please tell me how long you have to measure everything? I know it sounds childish and silly, BUT I can't help but feel a little embarrassed measuring everything! Do you have to do it forever? How do you go about measuring your food? What about eating out?

I don't weigh or measure things when I go out. I don't eat out very often.
Weighing and measuring is just a tool. You don't have to weigh everything to lose weight but if you do it might make your logging and weight loss easier. If that embarrases you to do it then learn what a portion size of the foods you commonly eat look like and accept that you might be less accurate.

bwogilvie

booksandchocolate12 wrote: »

...I'm one of those people who will have to do it forever. I know from past experience that if I stop weighing my food, after a while "portion creep" sets in, where my portions get slightly bigger, and bigger, until I'm eating way too much.

I like the term "portion creep"!

I've stopped weighing regularly, but I still do it from time to time as a reality check, to prevent that from happening. I'm in maintenance, and if I find that my weight starts slowly creeping up again, I'll go back to weighing more regularly.

ald783

The longer you do it, the more familiar and comfortable you will get with estimating and eyeballing. Like others, I'm sure I track portions more accurately when I measure everything but I think estimating gets me close enough. For me, it comes down to what habits I can stick to im the long run. It is not realistic for me to ever whip out measuring cups in public so eyeballing was a necessary habit to get into.

rankinsect

I as well only measure at home, and pack my own food for work. When I eat out or with others I guesstimate (if it's a restaurant that has nutrition info, I assume my meal is what they say it is). It's not a common enough occurrence that the error in measurement will be significant.

justrollme

cnbbnc wrote: »

There's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean...did you realize what proper portions of food looked like before putting them on a scale? I sure didn't! I was sitting down with 3 servings of ice cream in the evening, 2 portions of pasta... I was shocked to see how small a serving of rice and peanut butter really is! I had no idea how much I was consuming. People are asking me how I'm losing weight, and the answer is my scale.

So much this.

pilotsroo

Thank you so much everyone! I brought a scale today and plan on using it at home as often as I can. Certainly don't feel nearly as embarrassed now, I am actually quite excited! Thank you everyone.

Christine_72

I weigh and measure at home and try and find a comparison in the data base when I go out to eat. I'm am absolutely hopeless at guessing weights of foods. And for a few extra seconds, using a scale is worth it.

It's pretty much pointless to take a food scale to a restaurant as you cant be sure of the exact ingredients in your meal, such as butter,oils,sauces etc etc

zenjen13

I'm new to this too and just bought my scale yesterday. I can tell you that I certainly cannot portion properly with my eyes. I had some bread tonight and the portion according to the pkg is 50g. I sliced some and my piece was 45g. In the past I would've eaten three of these pieces thinking I was ok - not tonight!

annette_15

I really really really love my food scale. I do sometimes get sick of it and will take a break for couple of days, but I love the feeling of control I have when I use it. No more guessing. I know I can have my dessert and eat it too (literally), Every. Single. Day.

I only use it at home tho. I would never take it on vacation, to a restaurant or a friends house. I've been at this for long enough that I'm very comfortable with portion sizes, and I tend to make better choices when I dont have my scale anyway

Liftng4Lis

Why would this be embarrassing? I weigh when home, but when I eat out, it's guesstimation time.

Gisel2015

I also use my scale at home, only. When I go out (usually twice a week and sometimes three), I am careful with the portions; I don't log anything unless the restaurant has the nutritional information in their website, and I don"t guesstimate or try to look for similarities in the MFP database. Not worthy for me. The same when I go to a friend's house or even during the holidays.

nordlead2005

I weigh only at home (85% of my meals), tend to go to chains when eating at a restaurant or fast food (3%), and use best guess everywhere else (12%, parents house, etc).

With almost 90% of my meals accurate, best guess on the rest doesn't impede my progress. Plus, you'll learn over time what certain portions look like.