Where are you imprecise with your measurements?
MegaMooseEsq
Posts: 3,118 Member
There are lots of posts about how to measure portions accurately, but I'm curious where people who are successfully losing weight fudge their counting and why. Personally, I rarely weigh pre-packaged single-serving foods - I figure close enough is good enough, and they don't make up enough of my diet to throw off my numbers. I get pretty loosy-goosy with veggies sometimes, too, or low-calorie fruit like watermelon. I also eyeball the splash of milk in my coffee every morning.
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I don't weigh pre-packaged single-serve foods, eggs, or spices.3
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I don't measure hot sauce, I guess about how much I put on.
I eat jalapenos almost every day and I usually don't weigh them, I'll just enter it as the number I have.0 -
Iv never understood why people say watermelon is low calorie when google says 1 melon is my entire days calories
I dont really mind if i go over the greens in my smoothie but otherwise im pretty accurate. Not even really a second thought anymore, Since i eat mostly fruit and veg im strict on being slightly under on fruit grams i track vs over, And slightly over vs under on veg. Ensure i get the proper nutrients in i have to be pretty strict with the stuff i eat lol.
I dont worry to much about my ketchup i put on my veg sometimes because i buy a brand thats 5 calories per tablespoon, And even if i use alot that doesnt really add up lol3 -
I don't weigh salad-type veggies, eggs, or my protein bars. I used to. But they were usually pretty close to my guess, so I quit.0
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Ready2Rock206 wrote: »I don't weigh pre-packaged single-serve foods, eggs, or spices.
Basically this. I also, tend not to weight bacon and sausage (I know, tisk tisk but I'm still losing with only 2-3lbs to go). If the package says 3 pieces, I eat and log 3 pieces. I also don't weigh lettuce.
And of course, restaurant food. I've gotten really good at eyeballing, but I've been doing this on and off for 6 years.
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I don't weigh or measure my salsa very closely at all.0
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I stopped weighing the bagel I have for breakfast. I used to, and then do the math to calculate the exact percentage of the 'normal' serving size, but... that's just to much braining to do first thing in the morning. Now I just go by the calories in the database. It could be less. It could be more. But the +/- 50 calories difference it might be aren't going to make THAT much of a difference. It's all an estimate anyway, especially since I usually get Asiago cheese bagels and sometimes the baker is a little more heavy-handed with the cheese than at other times.
I don't measure salad greens, either. The other stuff in the salad, sure, but the greens... not going to make much difference either way.
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Single serving products, salad greens and spices are not accurately measured. Nothing unusual.0
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Eggs, bread, English muffins, granola bars.
Eggs= 'm going to have to trust that they're 70 calories, and I'm not willing to go obsessing over that particular minutiae.
Bread and English muffins = I used to weigh. And then I saw that over the course of a package or loaf, it averaged out to each slice having the weight that the package said it should. So even though I may get more at one serving, I know I'll likely get less at another.
Granola bars = I don't eat enough of my two "OK" bars to honestly care. It's not going to make that much of a difference one way or the other.1 -
My trips to Costco and all the samples
. The creamer in my coffee, most veggies excluding potatoes beans and other more calorie dense ones. A lot more items than I should. I do leave a 100 to 200 calorie cushion at the end of the day to cover that though. When I stop losing predictably like this I'll tighten up my logging. 0 -
JaydedMiss wrote: »Iv never understood why people say watermelon is low calorie when google says 1 melon is my entire days calories
The information I found has watermelon at .3 calories per gram. And the "one melon being your entire days worth of calorie" has a weight of nearly 10 lbs. Watermelon is low calorie, as surely you aren't going to be able to eat 10 lbs of it at once.6 -
collectingblues wrote: »
Bread and English muffins = I used to weigh. And then I saw that over the course of a package or loaf, it averaged out to each slice having the weight that the package said it should. So even though I may get more at one serving, I know I'll likely get less at another.
I don't weigh english muffins either - for bread it depends on the loaf. For those loaves where the bread is all pretty much the same size I am less likely to weigh than those loaves that are smaller on the ends and get wider in the middle - there's a lot of size difference in some of those slices so I usually do weigh those.
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I don't weigh eggs, slices of breads, most single-serve individually packaged items. I don't log coffee or tea or spices or medicine or vitamins. I'm good at estimating and don't worry about how to log restaurant food. I also divvy out my cooked pasta with a measuring cup because I've tested it and it's close enough for me.2
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JaydedMiss wrote: »Iv never understood why people say watermelon is low calorie when google says 1 melon is my entire days calories
The information I found has watermelon at .3 calories per gram. And the "one melon being your entire days worth of calorie" has a weight of nearly 10 lbs. Watermelon is low calorie, as surely you aren't going to be able to eat 10 lbs of it at once.
fair didnt really think of 4,500g beign 10 pounds lol but even the biggest watermelons iv seen dont seem that big to me, So even 1/4 of it being 1/4 of my daily calories turns me off them i guess. I really should look into buying one and weighing it out without the skins and stuff. Would probably be a good addition to my frozen fruit stash in small chunks really. Just tend to avoid things where 1 = all the calories lol0 -
JaydedMiss wrote: »JaydedMiss wrote: »Iv never understood why people say watermelon is low calorie when google says 1 melon is my entire days calories
The information I found has watermelon at .3 calories per gram. And the "one melon being your entire days worth of calorie" has a weight of nearly 10 lbs. Watermelon is low calorie, as surely you aren't going to be able to eat 10 lbs of it at once.
fair didnt really think of 4,500g beign 10 pounds lol but even the biggest watermelons iv seen dont seem that big to me, So even 1/4 of it being 1/4 of my daily calories turns me off them i guess. I really should look into buying one and weighing it out without the skins and stuff. Would probably be a good addition to my frozen fruit stash in small chunks really. Just tend to avoid things where 1 = all the calories lol
Yeah... when I eat watermelon, it's usually a slice or two at a picnic, or some chunks with my lunch. 1/4th of a ten pound watermelon is still a huge serving. I can fit about 150 grams into a one-cup container and that's 45 calories according to the USDA website. If 45 calories is 1/4th of your daily calories, I eat a lot more calories than you. Go forth and eat watermelon!1 -
Everything. I don't weigh food.4
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »JaydedMiss wrote: »JaydedMiss wrote: »Iv never understood why people say watermelon is low calorie when google says 1 melon is my entire days calories
The information I found has watermelon at .3 calories per gram. And the "one melon being your entire days worth of calorie" has a weight of nearly 10 lbs. Watermelon is low calorie, as surely you aren't going to be able to eat 10 lbs of it at once.
fair didnt really think of 4,500g beign 10 pounds lol but even the biggest watermelons iv seen dont seem that big to me, So even 1/4 of it being 1/4 of my daily calories turns me off them i guess. I really should look into buying one and weighing it out without the skins and stuff. Would probably be a good addition to my frozen fruit stash in small chunks really. Just tend to avoid things where 1 = all the calories lol
Yeah... when I eat watermelon, it's usually a slice or two at a picnic, or some chunks with my lunch. Around 150 grams is a perfectly good size serving and that's 45 calories according to the USDA website. If 45 calories is 1/4th of your daily calories, I eat a lot more calories than you. Go forth and eat watermelon!
Next time i find one on sale and have freezer space (rare i have a ton of frozen fruits n veg because a bad fridge lol) ill for sure buy one and play with it, Watermelon is yummy 1 -
I guess it is easier to list the things I do weigh (or use measuring spoons and cups) ...oils, butter, cheese, ice cream, meat, cereal, nuts, fruit, potatoes, avocado, beans, sugar, syrup.
I don't weigh sliced bread or pre-portioned stuff like buns, or eggs, bacon, sausage links or patties, or most vegetables, I just eyeball vegetables, even in recipes. I don't even use cup measures anymore for milk - I just guess. I do still log it all. So far so good.
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Porridge was, and still is, worth weighing - so it's perfect every time and doesn't explode all over the microwave.
Worth spending a while logging accurately just for self-education about portion sizes and calorie density but I didn't find accurate logging necessary to lose my weight successfully. I used a lot of generic entries (fruit, eggs etc.) and went by package food labels. Guessed the proportion of shared dishes.
Also averaged out my tea and coffee rather than log each cup separately.
My lazy but consistent logging was only about 200cals a day off based on my weight loss over time so I simply reduced my base calories to compensate.
But if you aren't losing weight as expected then logging inaccuracy is the prime suspect.1 -
I don't weigh bread slices, ketchup(any sauce except for mayo), single serve items, guestimate milk in tea, eggs, dried herbs and spices, recipes from the recipe builder once made, and guestimate butter on toast (the occasions I did weight were spot on with the guestimates). I just account for inaccuracies by not eating back all of my activity calories. This way has worked just fine if it stops working I will tighten things up and weigh more right now I don't feel the need to.1
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Raw or steamed vegetables/fruits. I usually ignore but will add 100 calories to my meal if I have a substantial quantity or if I eat a piece of fruit for a snack.
Store-bought bread and english muffins. At 90 calories per slice and 160 per muffin, even if they're off by 30% it's still not a significant amount of calories relative to my daily totals. Plus, differences can go both ways so things should even out over the long term. Ditto individual pieces of Canadian Bacon (20 calories per slice) and eggs (90 calories per egg for the jumbo ones).0 -
I don't weigh prepackaged food, slices of bread, etc. All of this is an estimate, anyway, so it is close enough that it doesn't affect weight loss.
I also don't weigh ketchup or log gum.
I think that's about it. I weigh the rest.
Except lettuce. I usually don't weigh lettuce because it's like 10 calories anyway.0 -
Leafy veg doesn't get measured, just eye balled. I also don't measure vinegars in my salad dressings. It's so low cal, it doesn't matter.0
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Tonight I'm going to have a sandwich with precisely weighed bread, meat, avocado, onion, and peppers. I'm going to have a "slice" of provolone cheese, which is imprecise, because I'm disinclined to do any further research if the dadgum Nutrition Facts doesn't list a gram value for a slice. I'm so persnickety about some things that, for example, I will get 60 grams of kale in my morning smoothie if I have to pinch a little fragment of leaf away from a 61 g bigger leaf.0
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I wasn't particularly precise with most things...I weighed out calorie dense things as well as meats...never weighed or measured something that was pre-packaged...if my egg container said 1 egg was 60 calories, that's what I logged...stuff like that. I typically used measuring cups for things like oats, rice, etc. For veggies and salads and whatnot, I just had a number that I would use...I did weigh most fruit. Never bothered with things like ketchup or mustard, etc, but when I use those things, it's typically not very much...
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Fresh squeezed lemon juice is a freebie I give myself. Oatmeal (old fashioned) just gets scooped out with a 1/2 cup measure spoon because every time I weighed it it was within 1 gram of expected. Tomato juice is 50 calories for 8 oz and my glass overflows at 8.75 oz so I eyeball that. Baby spinach is eyeballed. Onions may be eyeballed or weighed depending on my mood, but I'm never off by more than 25 calories so I may not bother anymore. Pot roast is weighed, but can't portion that raw, so it is still a guesstimate. And if I'm feeling generous to myself or if I swam that day, pineapple or cantaloupe are eyeballed.0
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I just eyeball most non-fattening condiments like sugar-free ketchup, salsa, and lemon juice. Actually, those are the only non-fattening condiments I eat. Oh, and sugar-free syrup. Sometimes I don't log them.
I leave some exercise calories on the table for my loose logging, for example, my creamer is always logged as 2 tablespoons, and while I weight it, some days it's over by a few grams, some days it's under. I figure it all balances out over time. Sometimes I lick spoons or take tastes that I don't log. This is all stuff the extra exercise calories cover.
If I weren't getting the results I wanted, I'd tighten things up.1 -
I don't weigh single servings when pre packed. Also I don't weigh the oil when cooking my dinner. Most of it stays in the pan and I've been steadily losing0
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I'm with others on not weighing pre-packaged single serving things. I also stopped weighing my bananas. I eat a banana almost every morning and I'm okay with assuming that my banana is about 110 calories on average. I also don't weigh spices or small amounts of low calorie produce/condiments.
Basically anything that is very low calorie, more or less uniform in weight, and/or pre-packaged single serving is probably not worth my time to weigh.1 -
I don't weigh single servings when pre packed. Also I don't weigh the oil when cooking my dinner. Most of it stays in the pan and I've been steadily losing
I can guarantee you that most of your cooking oil is not staying in the pan.
You might be losing now, but that will catch up to you.
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