Wait.What? You even weigh THAT?

NewChapterInMyLife

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?

deannalfisher

i don't weight yogurt or veggie packs (I've noticed they are relatively close); peanut butter can have a huge calorie range depending on how much you each - i'd be more likely to weigh pb than fruit/veggies

concordancia

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.

kami3006

Plenty of people get by without weighing packaged foods but, when you get down to a small deficit, those little (and sometimes large) discrepancies can make or break your progress.

I lost using only a 250 calorie deficit and several packaged foods I used would have added 25-50 calories per item regularly to my intake. That is a lot when you don't have much wiggle room.

ETA: as far as sustaining it, weighing and logging is just such a habit that I don't even think about it much. I plate my food on my scale and log it before I eat. Only takes a minute.

Packaged foods are allowed to have up to a 20% margin of error.

Fitnessmom82

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!

nutmegoreo

You'd be better off weighing peanut butter and granola rather than your veggies. There is a lot of calories packed into a small amount of food, so the potential calorie error of a spoon of peanut butter versus a cup of veggies is going to be considerably higher.

Edited for clarity.

janejellyroll

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.

kami3006

For the love of all things holy, weigh peanut butter!

NewChapterInMyLife

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

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!

nutmegoreo

NewChapterInMyLife 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.

kami3006

nutmegoreo wrote: »

NewChapterInMyLife 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.

RAinWA

Weighing cereal as opposed to using a cup measure made me really, really sad. It's a lot less than I want.

nutmegoreo

kami3006 wrote: »

nutmegoreo wrote: »

NewChapterInMyLife 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.

Right!?! If I am going to count the calories for it, you bet your backside I'm eating them all. There are simply no other acceptable alternatives.

AliceDark

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.)

NewChapterInMyLife

Jeez, thanks guys! Weighing my cereal and PB and higher cal loose foods from here on out. Grateful for your input and love MFP such a wealth of information and support.

fitoverfortymom

I rarely weigh food in single serve packages. Sometimes protein bars or stuff like that. Never single packages of Greek yogurt.

NovusDies

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?

MichelleSilverleaf

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

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_

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.

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Francl27

If you're losing weight fine, I wouldn't worry about it. I've had bad experiences with packaged items weighing 20% more than what the package says though (sometimes it adds up to 100 calories!).

Yogurt is always less than what the package says, so I don't bother. Granola bars can be easily 3-4g more. I don't really use that much packaged food that 20 calories here and there is a big deal, but it adds up.

For ice cream, volume just doesn't work and I always weigh it.

cwolfman13

NewChapterInMyLife wrote: »

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?

Depends...I never had a reason to weigh packaged foods. I never had a reason to strive for some kind of perfection...and even then, there is error. I never had issues losing weight just weighing calorie dense things and meat...I never weighed fruit or veg either. Personally, I think it's a bit over the top.

NovusDies

JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.

glassyo

NewChapterInMyLife 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

And then lick the knife clean.

I would weigh cereal too. Using a measuring cup gets you all kinds of funky serving sizes depending on the cereal.

callsitlikeiseeit

really, i weigh most things. the list of what i dont is far shorter than what i DO lol

AliceDark

NovusDies wrote: »

JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.

I respectfully disagree with the bolded part. Weighing food isn't necessary to create a deficit and lose weight. It's a helpful method for some people, but it's not the only method that works. I think the insistence that you HAVE to weigh your food can be really discouraging for people for whom weighing food isn't a good option.

psychod787

When I started weighing food a couple years ago, I weighed every thing. Now, I have noticed I am really good at judging non calorically dense food, such as broccoli and greens. I actually weighed out 20 serving a of broccoli the other day, ptr it in a bag, and put it in containers for prep and did not measure anything. Came out with 19 servings just by using my eyes and hands as an estimate.

Lounmoun

NovusDies wrote: »

JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.

Logging food is a tool some people find helpful for weight management.
Weighing food is a tool some people find helpful for weight management.
I agree that posts telling people they have to weigh absultely everything can discourage people just starting. I'd advise someone to do what they are comfortable with and see the results after a month or so. If they are losing as expected then it is fine. If you are not losing then mprove the accuracy of your logging.

In my household I need to log and weigh most things. My dh loses and maintains without doing any of that. My dd also manages her weight without logging or weighing food now but tracked intake for awhile while trying to gain although did not use a food scale. So I agree that different systems work for different people.

CarvedTones

I weigh a lot of my foods, but not prepackaged. When I was losing the bulk of the weight, I had a high enough deficit that little discrepancies in packaged foods or stuff prepared by someone else and/or served family style that I just ballparked worked out close enough to even I guess. So far in maintenance (about 6 or 7 weeks), I still do the same - weigh as much as I can. In the morning, I weigh 8 oz of yogurt and mix in exactly 24g of PB2. I weigh cereal to the gram to match the serving size on the box and I weigh apples or bananas. I usually weigh some chicken to take for lunch. I have stayed in a pretty tight window the last few weeks; maybe a 3 pound variance. I think accuracy has a lot to do with that.