Help with diary

AmberGebell

If anyone can go to my food diary and give any suggestions I would appreciate it! I have been tracking, weighing and measuring for months ( close to a year) with doing 4 days of weight training and 6 days of cardio every week. I am not losing , My Fitbit is synced with MFP and it says I am in about 1000 calorie deficit daily so I am completely confused as to why this is such a slow process

avskk

I see a lot of things not weighed in your diary. A lot. Are you weighing creamer to make sure a tablespoon matches package weight? How much does "a small potato" weigh? One Aldi chicken breast is how many grams? Was your Oikos the same weight as the package indicated, or more, or less?

Other days are the same -- you have "1 tortilla" yesterday, "1 slice" of pepperjack cheese several days, cups of rice and broccoli, ".5" of a bagel, and these are just the things I chose from various days. I suspect you're eating more than you know.

AmberGebell

I thought you were to measure liquids? I measure creamer with a measuring spoon, I scan the tortilla package and the pepper jack cheese package, Why does this app have a bar code scanner if not accurate? So if I scan brown rice package and it gives me calories for a cup of rice and I measure a half a cup of rice with a measuring cup, That's wrong? And the yogurt is a little container and when I scan it it says 120 calories for 1 container, Should I spoon it out and put on food scale? So you are saying the packaging is wrong? I don't estimate anything, If it has a package I scan barcode and if it does not I weigh it

Queenmunchy

That's correct - use a scale. You can still use the scanner to get the right item, but if there is no option of weighing by the gram, you may want to find another entry.

avskk

AmberGebell wrote: »

I thought you were to measure liquids? I measure creamer with a measuring spoon, I scan the tortilla package and the pepper jack cheese package, Why does this app have a bar code scanner if not accurate? So if I scan brown rice package and it gives me calories for a cup of rice and I measure a half a cup of rice with a measuring cup, That's wrong? And the yogurt is a little container and when I scan it it says 120 calories for 1 container, Should I spoon it out and put on food scale? So you are saying the packaging is wrong? I don't estimate anything, If it has a package I scan barcode and if it does not I weigh it

Package labels give the calories for a particular weight of the product. For instance, on your cheese it'll say "1 slice (21g)." You need to weigh the slices, because a slice may actually be 19g or 25g. A cup or half cup of cooked rice is going to vary in weight; you should be weighing it dry, logging the dry weight, then cooking and eating it. (For rice, pasta, etc. the package gives calories for dry product, unless it specifically says cooked.) A container of yogurt will vary, too; my yogurt is 5.2oz (or 147 grams) on the label, but the individual cups vary in weight from 133 grams to 164 grams.

As for creamer, mine says "1 tablespoon (15g)." If yours gives a weight measure, you should use it. If it says mL, then measure with a measuring spoon.

Intentional_Me

If you search for the name and type grams that usually helps bring up an entry. Otherwise I will enter it as the cup serving but follow the gram recommendation on the packaging that way I know my"half a cup" is accurate

AmberGebell

Ok thank you, That makes sense, But what is you can't weigh it dry? For instance I get Trader Joe's microwave bags of brown rice, So it cooks in bag, I open it and measure, But instead of using cup I will use scale, And I will weigh creamer and yogurt

trigden1991

Use a set of scales. Using cups/spoons is not weighing your food accurately

avskk

In the case of your rice, just weigh it wet then, and be sure you're using a "cooked" entry to log it. When you weigh it, compare the weight to the package -- if the package says a cup is, say, 100g and what you have is 115g, you can log it as 1.15 cups and still be correct. (Of course, it's not likely to be a nice round number like that, but with a little math you can still use this method.) Your other option is to find or create entries that are already in grams so you can log the exact number.

Make sure to do this with every solid or semi-solid food you eat, regardless of whether it's pre-packaged, pre-portioned, or completely whole and raw. Choose to weigh things uncooked wherever possible (meat, pastas, potatoes, etc.). It'll work, and good luck!

AmberGebell

Thank you