Weighing Food

DragonHasTheSapphire

I'm so sorry if there's 1,000 topics like these, but how do you portion out your foods (measuring cups or the scale for grains, meat, liquids, ect.) I've always used the scale for pretty much every solid except for liquids.

Do you weigh food when it's unprepared/uncooked? (like dry oats vs. cooked oats).

livingleanlivingclean

Scale - solids and semi-solids (yoghurt, thick sauces etc)

Measuring cups/spoons for liquids

I weigh everything raw/pre cooked or as it's packaged

CarvedTones

I weigh a lot of liquids also; like 8 oz glass of almond milk or juice. then I only have the cup I am drinking out of to wash. Lots of liquids like dressing have tbs and grams listed for serving size and I will just weigh as I add it to something. Some stuff I weigh after cooking; like if I make rice, noodles, mashed potatoes or whatever for the family, I have to weigh my portion prepared. I bake a bunch of chicken breasts in advance and then weigh one I am about to eat as I use them up. You can usually find entries for cooked food.

malsseong

I definitely prefer to weigh, because it's so much more accurate. But if the nutritional information on the package is by volume, I'll usually measure.

rheddmobile

It depends. I don't generally weigh low calorie dense foods such as non-starchy vegetables, just estimate. Many foods, including meat, I weigh by putting my plate on the scale and adding one food at a time, although the weight of cooked meat is not the same as raw meat, so I use a cooked weight entry. For items such as rice, pasta, or oats, which absorb water while cooking, I weigh raw. Packaged foods I weigh once, to determine if the package is accurate, and then if it's close I go with the package estimate. Same with fruits - I know what a large orange versus a small one weighs, roughly. And I know how many ounces my drinking glass holds.

If I were having trouble losing weight, I would tighten up my logging, but this has worked very well for me for 118 lbs. The only caveat is that I periodically check the weight of calorie dense foods such as nut butter and mayonnaise to be sure my eyeball measurement isn't creeping upwards.

yirara

I weigh everything I can weigh. When I cook I take something out of the fridge, remove peel or whatever it has, put on scale, weigh, prepare for cooking. Takes seconds.

I made a peanut sauce the other day the same way. Now it's a big portion and I can add it to quite a few dinners. But I know how much calories are inside that pot in total. And this way I can portion it out. I mean, I might be 50kcal higher on any given day, but then I'll be lower on others. I can't pull more calories out of a pot than I put in to start with.