Do you weigh food before or after cooking?

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  • TheAncientMariner
    TheAncientMariner Posts: 444 Member
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    If it has to be cooked and is a solid, I'll weigh it after. If it's something like a salad, then of course I weigh everything before since it doesn't have to be cooked. Things like oatmeal (which I can no longer eat as a result of keto) I typically weigh before. So it just depends on what I'm cooking. I try not to be too scientific about it.
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    edited October 2016
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    I cook for my whole family, so I haven't figured out a sensible way to weigh meat raw and then know which piece of chicken or whatever is mine, so I weigh meat cooked. It's probably not completely spot on, but I'm doing OK so far. For the most part, if I eat it raw, I weigh it raw. If I eat it cooked, I weigh it cooked. I figure if my weight loss ever stalls out, I will take a closer look at it and make tweaks. I have a LOT to lose (SW weight preMFP was 256 and now I'm around 230 with a GW of 150 and I'm 5'6"). Right now my focus is getting the most bang for my 1250 calories every day, making weighing and measuring my food a habit, and walking. I figure at some point I will have to adjust, but for the moment what I am doing is working--it's not too hard and easy enough to manage while seeing results. For me, getting stuck in the minutia becomes paralyzing and then I do NOTHING rather than SOMETHING.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    I like bone-in meat, so weigh it cooked a lot. I think it doesn't make that much of a difference. The important thing is to choose the right entry -- cooked (and the right method) vs. raw.

    I much prefer weighing pasta or rice dry, so would do what amyrebeccah mentioned -- make a certain number of servings, weight the whole when finished and portion out the serving I want. (For example, if a serving is 56 g dry I'd cook 124 g and then take .25 of whatever the final weight is. I'd write the cooked weight of my serving down in case there are leftovers, too.) Writing this makes it sound complicated, but it's not.
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,073 Member
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    rhauser44 wrote: »
    I weigh chicken breasts after cooking. For thing that will absorb water or liquids during cooking (oatmeal) I weigh the dry ingredients before cooking.

    That part
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    meidoj wrote: »
    Hi friends,
    Just wondering if you weigh your food before or after cooking? Tonight I had grilled chicken and out of interest weighed it before and after. It was around 190g before cooking and around 115g after. Till now I have been weighing before but maybe that means I'm not eating enough... or if I start weighing after, will I end up eating too much?
    Thanks in advance for your help and thoughts on the matter, and keep going everyone! You've made it this far! ♡

    It doesn't really matter....just use the correct entry from the database...if you're weighing it cooked, you want to select cooked in the database, etc.
  • MPD6944
    MPD6944 Posts: 75 Member
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    MPD6944 wrote: »
    Oops I always thought with pasta if it is 2 oz dry then it would be 4 oz cooked for around 200 calories. So it is still only 2 oz cooked for 200?

    You're not too far off with your 4oz cooked, if anything you're overestimating a bit. For most of the pasta I use, 56g dry is about 130g cooked.

    Rice is all over the place though!

    Whew! Good to know, thanks!! I was so worried I went way over in my carbs LOL
  • johnnylakis
    johnnylakis Posts: 812 Member
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    meidoj wrote: »
    Hi friends,
    Just wondering if you weigh your food before or after cooking? Tonight I had grilled chicken and out of interest weighed it before and after. It was around 190g before cooking and around 115g after. Till now I have been weighing before but maybe that means I'm not eating enough... or if I start weighing after, will I end up eating too much?
    Thanks in advance for your help and thoughts on the matter, and keep going everyone! You've made it this far! ♡

    Always weigh before cooking

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