Weighing Food = Quite an Eye Opener

youdoyou2016

I'm nearing the end of my losing phase -- thankfully -- and have about 10 lbs to go, and it seems there is no room for error at this point.

Last week I purchased bread; I don't even remember the last time I've had it (just don't really like it, overall, but for some reason now I want toast). The package says 2 slices are 200 calories. I was curious and decided to weigh them and discovered that each slice comes out to 130-150 calories, meaning 2 slices comes out to 260 or even 300 calories. That's quite a difference.

I rarely eat processed things, but on the rare occasions when I have, I just use the info on the package / bag / bottle. No more. Maybe this is obvious to others, but I was quite surprised to see how off the information on the package was. I now don't have a lot of wiggle room calorie-wise, so this was a good discovery.

californiagirl2012

Total eye opener. I highly recommend doing it for this very reason. Good for you for taking the time, so many say they don't have time but you will be a winner for doing it.

cmtigger

Yes, it's always good to double check. Sometimes you find the other direction too, and can eat more.

RUNucbar

I didn't weigh pre-packed foods for a long time as I trusted the label. My loss stalled so I asked someone on my friends list to have a look and he caught this error. I then forgot to remove the packaging before weighing things a few times because I was half-asleep and logged the calories wrong because the weight was wrong. Woops.

But yes, there is variation there. sometimes more but sometimes less. You are not the only one to be caught out there though, I think pretty much all of us have trusted the labels without questioning them before we realized these things happen.

youdoyou2016

emmaling142 wrote: »

I didn't weigh pre-packed foods for a long time as I trusted the label. My loss stalled so I asked someone on my friends list to have a look and he caught this error. I then forgot to remove the packaging before weighing things a few times because I was half-asleep and logged the calories wrong because the weight was wrong. Woops.

But yes, there is variation there. sometimes more but sometimes less. You are not the only one to be caught out there though, I think pretty much all of us have trusted the labels without questioning them before we realized these things happen.

Now I'm just weighing things for the heck of it. Just now: my Greek olives are 22 calories for 14g. The jar says "about two olives." On my scale, 8 olives is 28 grams ... Then I double-checked another calorie book and got a similar result of X oz = Y calories, but the book says "about 10 olives." It's a little annoying now to weigh literally everything and constantly be doing 5th grade math problems, but I do not trust the producer / company. When there isn't much more to lose, I know I have to be absolutely accurate.