How am I doing..

jerilynconn

It gets easier and less overwhelming over time denise! Take it one step at a time

Raynn1

Lol, you get used to the scale for measuring food after a while. I dont even think about it now, I just grab the scale and measure what I need..

heybales

So as you discovered above, yes weight (grams or ounces, but serving size is always in grams).

Now for more confusion, but I think you know. In US ounces is both a measure of volume (8 oz = 1 cup) and weight (16 oz = 1 lb)

ONLY time oz volume = oz weight is for water and other liquids that happen to indeed have same density.

Usually the only time a true serving size is for volume oz (usually shown as mL) is for liquids, and that includes some soups.

All other items give grams for serving size, sometimes translated in to a loose volume measure of cups, spoons, oz's, 1/2 package, ect.
1 cup of broccoli for instance. Packed or loose, how big sizes, stems?
100 g of broccoli - simple.

The grams should always be used. For some things the difference will be minor and you'll learn that for what you commonly eat.
For others, as you discovered simple oatmeal, is not.

2 ways of doing it.
Weigh out whatever the serving size is to eat - log it easily.
Weigh out how much you want to eat, divide eaten weight by serving size weight - log it just as easily. (150 g eaten / 100 g serving = 1.5 servings logged).

And it gets super easy as justsayinisail described in both posts.

Oh, you'll want the scale in grams mode of course - since all serving sizes by weight are in grams.

And what's great is even if the database says 1 serving is 1 cup (because someone didn't enter the grams) - you know that one cup is truly meaning however many grams you read on the label - so entering 1.5 is still a true value.

For example, a bag of steamed vegetables of 7 oz (200 g) where you eat the whole bag, even if it says "about 2 servings per package" and serving size is about 1 cup cooked (100 g frozen).

So you weigh the frozen package - 205 g.
You cook it, empty bag, and weigh bag - 5 g.
Ok, trustworthy measurement on bag, don't need to do that again.
205 food & bag - 5 bag = 200 g of food.
200 g eaten / 100 g serving size = 2 serving sizes by weight, doesn't matter what volume was.

You look up in database and find entry, but it says 1 cup serving size.
Yep, that's your package.
You enter 2 and log it.

And you didn't have to dirty up a measuring cup at all for inaccurate info.

retirehappy

You may find this thread interesting:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1