Wait.What? You even weigh THAT?

I thought I did great with weighing my fruits, veggies and meats on my kitchen scale. I thought that was enough....but now I am reading how you should literally weigh everything from cereal to granola bars to the packaged foods that straight up TELL you how many calories in the package( such as yogurt or veggie packs or halo top ice cream or peanut butter)
I always just took it for face value that the packages or pints or whatnot don't lie.
Like, you weigh EVERYTHING? I understand the fruits, veggies and meat but EVERYTHING? And how do you sustain that? Have i been doing it wrong?
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Replies

  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
    It depends. I weigh things to double check sometimes. If a particular brand is usually consistent, I don't weight it any more.

    I am also currently at a 2lb/week loss. A hundred calories a day isn't going to change much. If your goal is .5lb/week, that hundred calories is half your deficit.

    Millions of us lost weight before digital scales made weighing so convenient. But if you are on the edge or not seeing the results you expect, weighing everything can help you figure it all out.
  • Fitnessmom82
    Fitnessmom82 Posts: 376 Member
    I do weigh everything within reason. All unpackaged stuff is always weighed. My sandwich thins that I like I will weigh because they can be off by a few grams. Packaged food I will weigh at random to see if they have a discrepancy. If they don't after a few packages I don't bother again until I buy a new batch. I didn't do it this extreme in the beginning but my deficit is small now, so every calorie counts!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    edited May 2018
    I weighed everything when I was losing weight because, especially towards the end, my deficit was pretty small and it wouldn't have taken much to throw me off.

    Packaging doesn't "lie" but there is an allowable margin of error they can have. And if a container has multiple servings, the package could still be completely accurate but I could take out more than what I thought I did. So I weighed it.

    It's not unsustainable. It's actually pretty easy once you get into the habit of it (at least for me).

    Now that I'm maintaining, I'm more flexible with it. I still weigh lots of things, but if I'm leaving the house and grabbing a snack to take to work, I may or may not throw it on the scale to verify the package weight. If I found my weight began behaving in unexpected ways, I would get more disciplined, but this works for me right now.
  • NewChapterInMyLife
    NewChapterInMyLife Posts: 757 Member
    I wasn't weighing my PB but i will now. I just put it into a Tablespoon and used a knife to scrape the top off to make it " even" but apparently a big no no...lol
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
    edited May 2018
    I was really good at scooping out exactly half a serving of PB. I have lost my mojo and have been way off the last two times. But that's ok, because I weighed it!
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    I wasn't weighing my PB but i will now. I just put it into a Tablespoon and used a knife to scrape the top off to make it " even" but apparently a big no no...lol

    I find it easiest to put the jar on the scale, zero it, scoop out what I'm going to use and then (unashamedly) lick the spoon or knife. The negative number on the scale is your amount used.

    ^ this. Lick that thing clean. :p
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
    It's a better idea to weigh higher-calorie foods than lower-calorie foods, because potential inaccuracies will have a larger impact on your deficit. So, if you eat more peanut butter than you intend, it has a bigger impact than if you eat more lettuce than you intend.

    With that said, I don't weigh things when it comes as a single package and I'm going to eat the whole package (granola bars, yogurt cups, etc.) I do weigh those kinds of things when they come in a multi-serving package (loose granola, etc.)
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    I rarely weigh food in single serve packages. Sometimes protein bars or stuff like that. Never single packages of Greek yogurt.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    Weighing things like cereal can be done in advance. The scale has kind of simplified a lot of my eating. I eat a lot more salad now because I don't have to weigh as much and my desire to snack on a spoon of PB has greatly decreased. Who said being lazy was always a bad thing? :grin:
  • MichelleSilverleaf
    MichelleSilverleaf Posts: 2,028 Member
    I don't trust the label serving sizes anymore and kind of find the scan barcode feature the app has unhelpful in light of that. I weigh everything; if the serving size happens to equal the label great, but more often than not it's been off.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    You should weigh what you find helpful to weigh. It is a tool for you.

    I don't weigh everything I consume.
    I very rarely eat from single serving packs of food so I weigh things to portion them out.
    I would not weigh a single serving yogurt container or a granola bar. I do not weigh commercial sliced bread.
  • _Charlene1985_
    _Charlene1985_ Posts: 1 Member
    I don’t weigh green veggies for salads or tomatoes- just log as 100g. And I also don’t weigh things such as a single serve container of yogurt. Gatorade. or a prepackaged cereal bar. But I weigh everything else.