Don't Trust Labels. Weigh your protein bars.

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  • WholeFoods4Lyfe
    WholeFoods4Lyfe Posts: 1,518 Member
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    I have a habit of just grabbing a few cashews every time I walk through the kitchen. I don't bother weighing them and of course they are all different sizes. How much do they weigh? I don't know, I just enter the random "cashews" entry. Oh well.
  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
    edited May 2019
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    It's great info for all the "i log everything but am not losing weight and it's been 3 weeks" sorta times. and those who lean towards a lot of prepackaged items.

    we can all get away with fudging and lazy weighing for awhile (maybe a long while) but I guess if things don't get moving for me i'll need to do this too (though I don't eat much prepackaged per say...my jello cup i guess. sometimes frozen yogurt bar...)

    I do weight the beef jerky i eat and find there is often less in the packages (like 60-61grams VS 62 it says).I weight mostly to ensure i have two similar portions though not to be more diligent.
  • dhiammarath
    dhiammarath Posts: 834 Member
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    RelCanonical wrote: »
    dhiammarath wrote: »
    I am a lazy weigher -- the things I weigh are like granola and chocolate chips and nuts. The things I know that "one little handful" is a slippery slope. If I were more disciplined, I would weigh everything, but I am lazy and okay with the weight loss being less than consistent as long as it is consistently going down. XD

    My prepackaged snacks will just have to keep their secrets! (But it is a good practice to do it to see how much is really in things. I did it once so I could see and it was eye opening).

    I'm also a big fan of the "do it once or twice to see" and then trusting that it's always going to be about that. The less calorie-dense it is, the more likely I'm going to be "eh, good enough" on accuracy. Three slices of tomato? 50grams or so, good enough. The impact of inaccuracy is really what it boils down to for me. I could throw another handful of spinach on no harm no foul, but a handful of cheese? Nahhhhh

    Exactly this. Cheese is lyfe. XD
  • chris89topher
    chris89topher Posts: 389 Member
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    I eat a lot of protein bars, they're one of my most recent obsessions. In fact I'm eating one as I write this, haha. The only time I weigh them is if I'm only going to eat half of one. I've found that they're only 2 or 3 grams off one direction or the other sometimes. And it seems a little obsessive to me to worry about that unless you're going to eat less than the full bar.
  • dianerobinson826
    dianerobinson826 Posts: 1 Member
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    Hi, can I ask do you weigh meat and fish before or after you cook them. I think the cooking changes the weight.
  • chris89topher
    chris89topher Posts: 389 Member
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    dianerobinson826 wrote: »
    Hi, can I ask do you weigh meat and fish before or after you cook them. I think the cooking changes the weight.

    I weigh everything before cooking. When you cook it you mostly just evaluate the liquids, so all the calories are still there even though the food got smaller. 😎
  • ktekc
    ktekc Posts: 879 Member
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    RelCanonical wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    This is a good reminder, thanks!

    One I'll always remember was sweet potatoes. MFP and I have very different ideas about what a "medium" potato looks like and it was a real shock when I started logging them by weight instead of using the size estimates.

    Also italiansausage links. I bought a pack once that gave the calorie estimates based on links that weighed 82 grams. Every link in that package was over 100 grams when I weighed them. It was a huge calorie difference.

    Yes indeed, large bananas for me were probably more like extra large bananas most of the time, and extra large for me was like, not even a thing in MFP. My grocery store gets biggun bananas.

    I will never forget a poster we had on the boards once who proclaimed that a small banana is only 90 calories and she always bought the biggest bananas she could find so that she got more banana for those 90 calories. I'm not sure she ever realized her mistake.

    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have shows like Secret Eaters. A whole show dedicated to how in denial people are about what they eat. Even I, proclaimer of honesty, have gotten the biggest pizza slice out of the box but only logged it as one slice. I only get away with it because I rarely have restaurant pizza, but if I did that could eat my whole deficit.

    I go for the one with the least crust. I'm not wasting my yummy pizza on a half pound of plain dough.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
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    ktekc wrote: »
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    This is a good reminder, thanks!

    One I'll always remember was sweet potatoes. MFP and I have very different ideas about what a "medium" potato looks like and it was a real shock when I started logging them by weight instead of using the size estimates.

    Also italiansausage links. I bought a pack once that gave the calorie estimates based on links that weighed 82 grams. Every link in that package was over 100 grams when I weighed them. It was a huge calorie difference.

    Yes indeed, large bananas for me were probably more like extra large bananas most of the time, and extra large for me was like, not even a thing in MFP. My grocery store gets biggun bananas.

    I will never forget a poster we had on the boards once who proclaimed that a small banana is only 90 calories and she always bought the biggest bananas she could find so that she got more banana for those 90 calories. I'm not sure she ever realized her mistake.

    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have shows like Secret Eaters. A whole show dedicated to how in denial people are about what they eat. Even I, proclaimer of honesty, have gotten the biggest pizza slice out of the box but only logged it as one slice. I only get away with it because I rarely have restaurant pizza, but if I did that could eat my whole deficit.

    I go for the one with the least crust. I'm not wasting my yummy pizza on a half pound of plain dough.

    I like the crust. I used to eat my friends' crusts in school. Was not surprised I was overweight lol.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    A big thick piece of steak, purchased from the nearby grocer, stated that it had 320 calories per ounce.
    When I tried to log it using the gold standard USDA database, I couldn't find any raw meat with 320 calories per ounce. I had 15.89 ounces, so I wanted accuracy. I eventually found that the mfp database listed the wal-mart ribeye steak for 320 calories per ounce and used that.
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
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    I always buy the smallest bananas I can find. I used the data base and logged them at 110 calories. I have been weighing them now, and they come in at about 75 calories. Weighing food can make a difference both ways.
  • Teabythesea_
    Teabythesea_ Posts: 559 Member
    edited May 2019
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    I dont bother with protein or granola bars, really. Reason being you're still going to be off because the number of chocolate chips, oats, swirls, nuts, etc. from bar to bar varies significantly. They determine the calorie content by taking the sum of the batch and dividing it by the number of bars made. I've gotten some quest bars that are almost all cookie or chocolate and some that only have one or two chunks. I just take it as it is and assume it'll even out. Now, bread! That's another story. I don't think I've ever gotten a slice that does weighmore than it's supposed to.
  • Soccermavrick
    Soccermavrick Posts: 405 Member
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    For some of us this matters, others 50 calories here or there is not the problem, it is the complete lack of control, or the complete unhealthiness of what we eat. Though in the big picture how many people know exactly how many calories they actually burn in a day, and how many go, well MFP says 1,200, 2,500 or 2,700 and go with that? Personally, I focus on portion sizes and better food choices, if my Quest Bar is over or under by 20-50 calories, I cannot lose sleep over that.
  • BattyKnitter
    BattyKnitter Posts: 503 Member
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    I'm a lazy weigher for pre-packaged, individual portioned items. The only things I do weight are things like rye bread which has all sorts of different sized slices in the package, otherwise I don't weigh and go with what the package says. So far my weight loss has progressed as predicted but I know where I will have to tighten up my logging when I get down to those last stubborn pounds.
  • yukfoo
    yukfoo Posts: 871 Member
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    Watched an interesting documentary a couple of weeks ago. A random food calorie test. The label said 474 calories. Turns out it actually tested at over 1700 calories in the lab. Can't trust any calorie count but hey..it's all we have.
  • lalalacroix
    lalalacroix Posts: 834 Member
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    After weighing food for 5 years I'm kinda a sloppy weigher these days. I'll totally weigh every gram of veggies but don't weigh most packaged foods. There was a time that I weighed everything, even eggs. I really didn't see the huge package differences that people claim. I still check my bread every so often and really never see much more than a gram or two different.

    I will continue to be a sloppy weigher of food for now. When my weight loss slows I will probably have to become more diligent.
  • Teabythesea_
    Teabythesea_ Posts: 559 Member
    edited May 2019
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    lalalacroix wrote: »
    After weighing food for 5 years I'm kinda a sloppy weigher these days. I'll totally weigh every gram of veggies but don't weigh most packaged foods. There was a time that I weighed everything, even eggs. I really didn't see the huge package differences that people claim. I still check my bread every so often and really never see much more than a gram or two different.

    I will continue to be a sloppy weigher of food for now. When my weight loss slows I will probably have to become more diligent.

    I wish I could get away with not weighing eggs. I get mine fresh from my mom and shes got one chicken that lays eggs over 60g (poor chicken) and a couple that lay eggs in the 40s lol.

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