How do you stay consistent with calories counting and weighing food

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gettingfitter777
gettingfitter777 Posts: 11 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey everyone,

I have been struggling with keeping consistent with counting calories and weighing food. I eat a lot of rice and frozen veggies, so I tend to get better results when I weigh everything. But juggling work/school responsibilities, I typically stop weighing everything and then slowly slip back into eating more over time. Does anyone have any tips/hacks or advice on how to stay consistent with it?
Would love to get some advice!

Replies

  • RedheadedPrincess14
    RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
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    What I do is that I add everything I cook to the recipe feature, choose a certain amount of servings and then I just divide it into that many containers. Calories may not be exact every time but they will be over the week
  • Blitzia
    Blitzia Posts: 205 Member
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    Do you have the mobile app? It can be helpful for logging even when you're on the go.

    For me, I don't find that weighing takes much extra time. When I'm making something, I just stick the plate on the scale and add the ingredients one at a time. If you instead make sure that you measure out one ounce of cheese (instead of adding .9 or 1.1 ounce and then trying to record however much you added) then it's easy to log food in advance. Also, I tend to eat the same things a lot. I'll have burritos and it's always 2 tortillas, 4 oz meat, 1 oz cheese so I saved those three things as a meal in MFP and can now add all of them with one click. I'm not sure if any of that is helpful, but for me, logging and weighing my food doesn't require much extra time.
  • Daddy78230
    Daddy78230 Posts: 125 Member
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    I keep everything simple. I'll have the same or similar meals and snacks most days of the week. I do add some variety, but 70% of what I eat is pretty much the same.
  • RedheadedPrincess14
    RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
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    Blitzia wrote: »
    Do you have the mobile app? It can be helpful for logging even when you're on the go.

    For me, I don't find that weighing takes much extra time. When I'm making something, I just stick the plate on the scale and add the ingredients one at a time. If you instead make sure that you measure out one ounce of cheese (instead of adding .9 or 1.1 ounce and then trying to record however much you added) then it's easy to log food in advance. Also, I tend to eat the same things a lot. I'll have burritos and it's always 2 tortillas, 4 oz meat, 1 oz cheese so I saved those three things as a meal in MFP and can now add all of them with one click. I'm not sure if any of that is helpful, but for me, logging and weighing my food doesn't require much extra time.

    Eating the same thing over and over again /really/ works for me
  • Ocrgrrrl
    Ocrgrrrl Posts: 189 Member
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    I second weighing and measuring ahead of time. It takes the guess work out of everything and there's less opportunity to get off track.
  • pamfgil
    pamfgil Posts: 449 Member
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    What kind of scale are you using? Mine is a flat circle, so I can put bowls or plates on it and weigh directly into what I'm going to eat out of. It's digital so if I'm weighing multiple items I just have to use tare. This means weighing takes minimal effort.
  • missh1967
    missh1967 Posts: 661 Member
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    Daddy78230 wrote: »
    I keep everything simple. I'll have the same or similar meals and snacks most days of the week. I do add some variety, but 70% of what I eat is pretty much the same.

    Same.
  • Rincewind_1965
    Rincewind_1965 Posts: 639 Member
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    missh1967 wrote: »
    Daddy78230 wrote: »
    I keep everything simple. I'll have the same or similar meals and snacks most days of the week. I do add some variety, but 70% of what I eat is pretty much the same.

    Same.

    Yepp, that's my way too,
    except for supper, that's when varieties come in. But usually cooking supper too means that I have enough time to weigh everything.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Weighing/logging doesn't really take a lot of time when you do it right - but you need 1) a good scale and 2) your own selection of correct database entries and 3) dedication. I suspect something else is going on. Are you resenting having to control your intake? Or do you want to eat more, and not knowing how much you eat, allows you to eat more? Are you eating a restrictive diet believing you have to do that in order to manage weight?
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I don't see how it takes so much more time to just throw your plate (or your lunch container) on the scale and hit a button when you make your meal. Then open the app and it takes literally 30 seconds to log it.

    If you have time to be on MFP forums, you have time to log your food.
  • heiliskrimsli
    heiliskrimsli Posts: 735 Member
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    My food scale never ever leaves the counter. It's out all the time because I use it for everything. I do meal prep where I make a bunch of something, weigh it, divide by the servings and then write the number of grams on a piece of tape that I put on the container. When it's meal time, I put a plate on the scale, weigh out a portion, and reheat. Into the app it goes.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
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    I cook, portion, and freeze more time intensive recipes so I can log a serving of them. For other things I typically pack up or prep ahead of time.
  • Chadxx
    Chadxx Posts: 1,199 Member
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    Weighing my food takes literally seconds to do. It is actually very convenient.
  • rugratz2015
    rugratz2015 Posts: 593 Member
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    It really is important to weigh everything properly, but there are a few cheats : I only eat certain cereals so I bought cheap measuring spoons and weighed out a portion of cereal, using the spoons. I leave the spoon in the box so I know one spoon is one portion. A few grams up/down won't make a difference.

    If I make a stew/casserole then I weigh and measure the ingredients going in, decide how many portions I'm going to get out of it and then portion it out when cooked.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    I stay consistent by not weighing my food. (I do weigh some things, but not much.) Obviously, there are people who think that is the wrong approach, but it works for me. At my last weigh-in I was 68 lbs lighter than the highest number I've ever seen on the scale and I've been close to that for about two years. For me, breakfast is usually the same thing. Bacon, eggs, and a banana. (~350 calories) I make lunch my dinner because I eat at a cafeteria and someone else is doing the cooking. There are several options, but meat, two vegetables, and a cornbread muffin is almost always between 500 and 750 calories. I have several options for what I might fix for supper, but they all come in roughly at 500 calories. So, three meals give me roughly 1,600 calories, which is 800 calories less than what my TDEE is predicted to be. And then there is ~1000 calorie per day of exercise. Those are taken up by things I eat that I don't classify as breakfast, dinner, or supper. Creamer in my coffee here, a bottle of Gatorade there. A piece of chocolate cake. And maybe another. I error on the side of being a few hundred calories under my goal (without being exact) because I know my estimates for how much I'm eating could be way off at times. I then use the weekly weigh-in to tell me how I'm doing. If my weight is going up then I know I'm above (maybe I'll skip the chocolate care next week) and if it is going down then I know I am under (time to start buying nuts again).
  • Enjcg5
    Enjcg5 Posts: 389 Member
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    I don't see how it takes so much more time to just throw your plate (or your lunch container) on the scale and hit a button when you make your meal. Then open the app and it takes literally 30 seconds to log it.

    If you have time to be on MFP forums, you have time to log your food.
    This! Take a step back and look at how much mindless time we spend on our devices. No excuses.

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