Just got a food shock...
Colorscheme
Posts: 1,179 Member
No wonder I keep losing and gaining the same four pounds over and over again.
I log and weigh most things. I don't log condiments like ketchup or butter because I hardly use it except in very small amounts. So I would weigh my bagels and log it, but not the whipped butter I'd put on top. Or cream cheese.
However, I've been fed up with not making any progress so I thought it would be time to log and weigh everything.
So today I had a small pre-packaged pizza from Stew Leonard's. The label says it weighs 255 grams yet my food scale said it weighed 465 grams. That is a huge difference.
Since I make pizza at home from scratch, I was wondering how something that's pretty big could have the same amount of calories as my thin crush homemade pizza, as the pre-packaged pizza looks to be double the size.
I learned a very important lesson today. From now on I will be extremely diligent with weighing and logging.
And just to put it in perspective, the whole pizza according to the label says it's 520 calories. But with weighing it's actually 923 calories. So the label says one serving is 4 slices, but doing the math it's actually 7.
I log and weigh most things. I don't log condiments like ketchup or butter because I hardly use it except in very small amounts. So I would weigh my bagels and log it, but not the whipped butter I'd put on top. Or cream cheese.
However, I've been fed up with not making any progress so I thought it would be time to log and weigh everything.
So today I had a small pre-packaged pizza from Stew Leonard's. The label says it weighs 255 grams yet my food scale said it weighed 465 grams. That is a huge difference.
Since I make pizza at home from scratch, I was wondering how something that's pretty big could have the same amount of calories as my thin crush homemade pizza, as the pre-packaged pizza looks to be double the size.
I learned a very important lesson today. From now on I will be extremely diligent with weighing and logging.
And just to put it in perspective, the whole pizza according to the label says it's 520 calories. But with weighing it's actually 923 calories. So the label says one serving is 4 slices, but doing the math it's actually 7.
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Replies
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It's a good lesson to learn!0
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Indeed!
And I have a fitbit so I usually have a 500 cal deficit from exercise and thought that would be enough to lose some weight combined with counting calories, but it turns out I'm not counting as well as I thought.0 -
Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.5 -
Yup! The prepackaged foods are probably one of the worst for just assuming what's on the package is correct. As I move closer to maintenance I am looking for ways to loosen my logging to see if I can slowly move away from it altogether at some point. Packaged goods will be one thing I stop weighing, with the foreknowledge that they are typically much more calorific than the package says. Good lesson!0
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Nice! Once I started weighing and logging everything, that's when things fell in place for me, too.2
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cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
The package says that one serving is one slice, 64 grams. It's meant to be four servings but it's more like seven after doing the math.0 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Yup! The prepackaged foods are probably one of the worst for just assuming what's on the package is correct. As I move closer to maintenance I am looking for ways to loosen my logging to see if I can slowly move away from it altogether at some point. Packaged goods will be one thing I stop weighing, with the foreknowledge that they are typically much more calorific than the package says. Good lesson!
I figured that the label would be correct since the FDA allows a 20 percent discrepency. Which would mean it should be a 120 cal difference and not more than that.0 -
you can never trust packaged foods. they are always off. Funny enough for me drive through fpod too. I went to taco bell and brought my scale and everythig was under. Not mad about it at all.2
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I learned that lesson years ago too. I measure butters, sauces, creamers, oils that I cook with...-- each and every calorie counts because they really add up quick!quiksylver296 wrote: »Nice! Once I started weighing and logging everything, that's when things fell in place for me, too.
Just goes to show I still have a lot to learn, even though I considered myself to be somewhat honest with logging. Guess not.1 -
I'd say that you were honest with your logging. It's just that you hadn't verified the data. And that seems reasonable, but now you've learned how important it can be.3
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Colorscheme wrote: »nutmegoreo wrote: »Yup! The prepackaged foods are probably one of the worst for just assuming what's on the package is correct. As I move closer to maintenance I am looking for ways to loosen my logging to see if I can slowly move away from it altogether at some point. Packaged goods will be one thing I stop weighing, with the foreknowledge that they are typically much more calorific than the package says. Good lesson!
I figured that the label would be correct since the FDA allows a 20 percent discrepency. Which would mean it should be a 120 cal difference and not more than that.
The 20% discrepancy is per serving. If there are 4 servings per package and each serving could be off by up to 120 calories, then the whole package could be off by up to 480 calories.
Good for you for taking the steps to weigh everything and work on logging more accurately! It depressing when things like this happen, isn't it?
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diannethegeek wrote: »Colorscheme wrote: »nutmegoreo wrote: »Yup! The prepackaged foods are probably one of the worst for just assuming what's on the package is correct. As I move closer to maintenance I am looking for ways to loosen my logging to see if I can slowly move away from it altogether at some point. Packaged goods will be one thing I stop weighing, with the foreknowledge that they are typically much more calorific than the package says. Good lesson!
I figured that the label would be correct since the FDA allows a 20 percent discrepency. Which would mean it should be a 120 cal difference and not more than that.
The 20% discrepancy is per serving. If there are 4 servings per package and each serving could be off by up to 120 calories, then the whole package could be off by up to 480 calories.
Good for you for taking the steps to weigh everything and work on logging more accurately! It depressing when things like this happen, isn't it?
Ah, gotcha.
And yes, it is depressing but now I know to log every single thing.3 -
This is such a great post!!!1
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The opposite happens a lot more often to me. The package says 300g, it turns out it's 250g and you miss out on nutrients
Weigh everything.1 -
It really is shocking when you realize how off some things are-my food scale is my most important tool in my weight control arsenal
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I also don't weigh ketchup - but butter has a high calorie content even for a little bit, so I definitely weigh that.0
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cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
Why not just measure butter or cream cheese? I always measure out a tsp of butter.
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cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
Why not just measure butter or cream cheese? I always measure out a tsp of butter.cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
Why not just measure butter or cream cheese? I always measure out a tsp of butter.
Because I use unsalted whipped butter and I use very little of it. But now I will weigh it. I don't like the butter you get and can cut into tablespoons. Hard to spread and it's very dense.0 -
Need a really big shock with the labels? Check potato chips. 40 chips or 50g should be lets say 200cal. Now weight 50g and show me how they got the 50 chips lol. Maybe if 10 were broken into 5 pieces each, that would work haha. Weight weight weight EVERYTHING.
Well I do weigh potato chips. I just didn't think to weigh pre-packaged foods like Lean Cuisines and pizza where the weight is already on it.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
Why not just measure butter or cream cheese? I always measure out a tsp of butter.
A level teaspoon or level tablespoon is much more than the allotted calories suggest. For instance, a serving of peanut butter is 32g (or 2 Tbsp.) If I used a level tablespoon (using a knife to level it) it comes out to 19g per tablespoon.
2 X 19g= 38g.
32g are 210 cals.
38g are 249 cals.
39 calories is quite a bit! I only get 1370 a day as it is. If I made several errors a day like that I would wipe out my entire deficit. One error per meal and I'm over by 120 calories. It matters when you get close to your weight loss goal.1 -
Do manufacturers have to be accurate with the calories per weight unit? Is it just the portion size that can be off???0
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In the U.S. it is allowable by law to be off in your nutrition labels by up to 20%. Could be high or low. Grams never lie, but any recipe can be off. Not only that, each piece of pizza will have slightly differing amounts of toppings.
Really, packaged food is a crapshoot.1 -
cmriverside wrote: »Was that pizza intended to be two servings? That's what it sounds like. Packaged food can be off by a margin of 10% or so, but I've never found one off by 50%. They wouldn't stay in business long with that error-factor!
Regardless, it's good to weigh everything, especially butter and cream cheese. Sometimes I'll guesstimate on plain raw veggies, but never on oils and fats. The tiniest amount is a lot of calories.
Why not just measure butter or cream cheese? I always measure out a tsp of butter.
Weighing is much more accurate.1 -
I weigh and measure everything, and was irritated that my sweet gerkins (sweet tiny pickles) were supposed to be 30 calories for 28g, then says "approximately 3 pickles". 1 pickle was 28 grams. I would have tripled my calories if I didn't have a scale and just used the label. I can't imagine if that happened with several foods all day long!
Keep at it, for sure!1 -
Yep I don't trust packaged foods one bit.
The biggest shocks for me were 'waffle waffle' waffles (man I love those things, but those 2 servings per waffles were more like 3 so a waffle was like 380 calories, although they've changed the composition since so it's 'only' 280 calories now) and Graze flapjacks. That 220 calories package often turned up 290 or something. Ugh.1 -
graysmom2005 wrote: »This is such a great post!!!
This is an awesome post!0 -
It can definitely be depressing , but at least you can see why everyone says weigh everything.
All these little discrepancies add up and bang your deficit is gone, leaving you frustrated when looking at that scale number not moving.
I have been weighing for ages but I still can't eyeball a correct serving of butter, cheese, Mayo or hummus.2 -
cmriverside wrote: »In the U.S. it is allowable by law to be off in your nutrition labels by up to 20%. Could be high or low. Grams never lie, but any recipe can be off. Not only that, each piece of pizza will have slightly differing amounts of toppings.
Really, packaged food is a crapshoot.
And in some cases you have to wonder if it is intentionally listed as 20% less than actual. 10 tortilla chips = X calories...um, no, weigh it and it is more like 8 chips = X calories.
With the public health consequences you might think nutrition labeling would be better. We might be better off if they just abandoned "servings" and listed the total calories for the entire package and the nutrition info per 100 grams or something.
I'm not saying a pint of ice cream is a serving. Not saying it isn't either.
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Yes! Log everything right down to butter used in a pan for sauteing or frying foods, oils like EVOO and definitely cream cheese, salsa and such. I always track every BLT (bite, lick and taste).
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cmriverside wrote: »In the U.S. it is allowable by law to be off in your nutrition labels by up to 20%. Could be high or low. Grams never lie, but any recipe can be off. Not only that, each piece of pizza will have slightly differing amounts of toppings.
Really, packaged food is a crapshoot.
And in some cases you have to wonder if it is intentionally listed as 20% less than actual. 10 tortilla chips = X calories...um, no, weigh it and it is more like 8 chips = X calories.
With the public health consequences you might think nutrition labeling would be better. We might be better off if they just abandoned "servings" and listed the total calories for the entire package and the nutrition info per 100 grams or something.
I'm not saying a pint of ice cream is a serving. Not saying it isn't either.
Isn't that what the UK does? I like their food labeling a lot better because it's usually per 50g or 100g serving and it's a lot easier to figure out how much a serving is.
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