Weighing food

jasmine_belle

I've just discovered a different way to weigh food that I hadn't thought of before. I'm a bit late to the party! I'm sure many do this but it was a lightbulb moment for me today.

When getting some peanut butter out of the jar I weighed the whole jar, then took some out and read the -number.

Why didn't I think of this before? I'd been weighing the toast, then spreading on the peanut butter, then weighing it again. Or putting a dollop of peanut butter straight onto the scales. This either resulted in a greasy mess or crumby mess.

I know it's so simple but it's made life a bit easier. I'm off to think of other things I can do this with....!

NovusDies

The important thing is you found a new and helpful trick. I used the same trick earlier because my lunch was not caloric enough and I had to add a piece of PB toast to it.

bennettinfinity

Even better; put jar of peanut butter on scale, zero/tare the scale, apply peanut butter... number now showing on scale (a negative number) is the weight of what you took out... Same principle as your system, but no math required!

fr33sia12

Just make sure you remember if you weighed the jar with the lid off or on beforehand.

Dani9585

Just make sure you lick the knife - the calories are counted for!

jordy1800

Ha Ha I make sure I eat all my counted calories.

serindipte

Here are some ideas on how I weigh things~

• If I'm spreading something on bread that I'm not going to lick the knife - I set the plate and bread on the scale, then turn it on or tare (Mine turns on to zero no matter what I have on it). I then spread my mayo, etc, on the bread. The number on the scale is the weight of my spread.
• If I am going to lick the knife (peanut butter), I do like mentioned above - I put the jar on the scale, lid off, then tare or turn on, take out what I want. The negative number is how much peanut butter I'm using.
• For salad or other items that have multiple ingredients - I put the bowl on the scale and add first ingredient, then tare between each added item, jotting down the numbers as I go.
• When I'm building a recipe - I make sure to get the weight of the dish I'll be cooking in before I put anything in it. Then, like above, I add my ingredients, weighing as I go. After cooking, I weigh the entire thing, then subtract the weight of the dish. The number in grams is how many 'servings' I use in the recipe builder. This way, when I log, I can put the weight of my serving and the calorie content will be as accurate as possible.

arijanahostnjak6423

Can someone explain how you record how much of something. I am so new to this. For example I had 71 g of cabbage as a veggie with one of my meal preps how do I add this info into my fitness pal to track? It just gives me existing options when I search the food

r3488

arijanahostnjak6423 wrote: »

Can someone explain how you record how much of something. I am so new to this. For example I had 71 g of cabbage as a veggie with one of my meal preps how do I add this info into my fitness pal to track? It just gives me existing options when I search the food

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10621050/how-to-use-the-usda-food-database-mfp-food-database-for-accurate-logging/p1

serindipte

arijanahostnjak6423 wrote: »

Can someone explain how you record how much of something. I am so new to this. For example I had 71 g of cabbage as a veggie with one of my meal preps how do I add this info into my fitness pal to track? It just gives me existing options when I search the food

I use the "search database" and, with your example, would type in "cabbage usda grams".

arijanahostnjak6423

Thanks so much!

lynn_glenmont

arijanahostnjak6423 wrote: »

Can someone explain how you record how much of something. I am so new to this. For example I had 71 g of cabbage as a veggie with one of my meal preps how do I add this info into my fitness pal to track? It just gives me existing options when I search the food

You're not limited to "existing" serving options. You can change the number of servings for any entry by clicking or tapping that field (depending on whether you're using the website or the app).

For example, if you search for "cabbage, raw" the first entry in the list of returns should be the USDA-based entry that has multiple serving size options in the pull down menu. You will see the pull-down menu if you tap or click on the serving size field (depending on whether you're using the app or the website). For example, you should see a list of options starting with "1 cup, chopped," then "1 cup, shredded" then "1 cup, large" and so on. About midway down the list you'll see 100 g. Since you only had 71 grams, click or tap where it says "1 serving" and change it to ".71 serving."