Weighing food...

dietstokes

So question. I am trying to tighten up my logging. I have been guestimating alot, which did actually work for me when consistent, but since I have a lot of days where I fall off the wagon, I am trying to track everything as accurately as possible (I fall off the wagon b/c I want to partake in fun things like beer and fries with the hubby when at the bar instead of drinking diet coke with salad, and we don't seem to follow a consistent schedule due to his work so its sometimes hard to plan for). I think having the difference in numbers will be a real eye opener to me. I even bought a little cheap travel food scale so I can bring it with me (yes, I am going to be THAT person for a few trips to the bar....good thing they know me there, lol). So, yeah, long story short, I'm getting stricter with logging, which means at least for the time being, more strict about weighing as well. Question is, I don't know when to weigh things such as certain fruits. Take a banana or orange, do I weigh it while still in the peel, or once removed? An apple, do I weigh is both pre and post eating (to get a net weight b/c of the core that I am not eating) or just at the start? I hope I'm not the first to ask this (and I'm sure I'm not) but I couldn't find the answer to this.

Thanks in advance!

dietstokes

btw, my weight loss is all vanity pounds. I'm technically a healthy weight for my height. I know this also makes it really important that I don't stray from my calorie amount as I don't really have a lot of wiggle room.

DisneyDude85

You only weigh what you eat. So if you eat an apple, weigh it before, eat what you want, weigh it again, and log the difference. I do the same with a banana. Weigh whole fruit before, eat, weigh peel afterwards

cwolfman13

you weigh the edible portion.

quiksylver296

Weigh the apple before and after, or cut it up and weigh the pieces you're going to eat (no core). Weigh the banana without the peel.

kgirlhart

Just weigh the parts you eat. I usually slice apples before eating them. If you want to eat it off the core you can weigh it and then weigh the core when you are finished and subtract that, but for me it is just easier to peel fruit and cut it and just weigh that.

janejellyroll

For fruit (or anything) just weigh the part you eat. Don't include the weight of the peel or core. I will either do a pre- and post-eating weigh or I will just cut up the fruit and weigh the part I am planning to eat.

dietstokes

Thanks guys! I know it seems obvious. That's what I thought, but then, I didn't know what part of the fruit they used when they basically burned it to measure the energy in the food item. You all have put my mind at easy

sympha01

I'm all for stricter logging for people who aren't seeing the results they expect, especially regarding portion control and scaling way back on eyeball guessing.

That said, after 3 years of logging one thing I've learned is not to sweat it too much over weight variances with raw fruits and vegetables, eg apple cores. Generally speaking I pre-log, and for fruits and veggies I make a conservative estimate (based on past experience weighing things, eg my pears are usually 200-220 g cored, so I'll pre-log 220 g, or a banana averages 100g so I'll pre-log that). Then I adjust based on actual weight at the end of the day but don't eat any extra calories I get from things turning out to weigh less, because it works out to at most a few dozen calories for everything at the end of the day. And sometimes I don't bother to adjust at all, though I almost always check the weight before I eat it lol.

Of course it's super-important to measure consistently in general, and especially with more calorific foods like fatty portions of meat, dense starchy foods, oil, avocados, cheese, etc., and most people need to take some time weighing for a while to get a sense of what's "usual" for the foods they buy and eat.