How accurate are you when tracking your meals?

jjpptt2

IMO -

The more calorie dense a food item is, the more important it is to weigh/measure/log it. The difference in calories between 1 serving and 1.5 servings of peanut butter or ice cream is very different than that of 1 or 1.5 servings of lettuce, an apple, etc.

On a related note, the lower your calorie goal is, the more important it is to weigh/measure. Estimating something and being off by 150 calories is very different for someone on 1200 cals per day compared to someone on 2500 cals per day.

JeromeBarry1

I log almost everything. Anything I don't log is because I forgot to, and then I regret forgetting and further resolve to log.

lemurcat12

If by green salads you mean spinach and arugula and so on, I usually weigh since it's just as easy as I have a bowl on the scale and am weighing other components (if I am logging at all -- I often don't, since I am at maintenance). However, I don't think it's going to matter if you estimate 2 cups or some such.

I would have logged veg for the reasons Ann says above.

Gisel2015

I weight most of the items, salads included because I am also watching macros and micros; but I also round everything to the closer digit most of the time (71g=70g but 78g-80g).

I am in maintenance so accuracy is not longer needed. I do admit that it wasn't either when I was losing because I didn't have a kitchen scale back then (OMG, heresy!!)

fitoverfortymom

I weigh everything, but don't freak out if I take an extra nibble of cucumber or something while slicing veggies. My salads can have 50-100 calories worth of veggies. That counts, in my book.

Timshel_

I error high on calories and low on excise calories burned. I find exact measurements helpful, but I tend to find the highest average calories for particular foods and go with that, and lowest average caloric burns as well.

Seffell

For the leafy greens I write what's on the packet. It is usually very accurate and even if it isn't I don't care cos it's 8cals anyway. I weigh lettuce and such but since I've been doing this for two years I can eyeball it too. The higher the calorie content, the more careful I am.

Christine_72

I weigh and measure everything i eat/drink. I weigh everything i use in recipes too, except i use serving sizes instead of weighing the pot before and after blah blah blah and inputting 2000 or whatever serving sizes. I used to do that, but just couldn't be bothered anymore!

Marykaylady2010

I weight pretty much everything I put the plate I’m going to eat on the scale and zero it and then add each item and zero it each time so i only use one plate and goes pretty quick I will usually try to hit the same number of grams with veggies so when I go to log I know I had say 30 grams of lettuce tomatoes carrots celery and then I don’t have to write each item down to remember