Weighing food accurately

beulah81

When I weigh out calorie rich foods I log the number the food scale shows me. My scale measures to the nearest gram, ml, etc. My question is, do any of you add decimal points to avoid underestimating calories?For example calorie count of 15.1 and 15.9 grams of almonds, chocolate, butter, oil (I measure liquids in mls.) is significantly different. At the end of the day it adds up.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Not for calories! (MFP won't record fractional calories, anyway.) You eat at least 1000kcals per day, so fractional calories couldn't matter.

As for grams, I could see the temptation to do fractional grams of fats, however, it would be pretty hard to know the actual consumed serving size to a fraction of a gram due to bits sticking here or there. I would vote no, but you are your own captain!

kimny72

beulah81 wrote: »

When I weigh out calorie rich foods I log the number the food scale shows me. My scale measures to the nearest gram, ml, etc. My question is, do any of you add decimal points to avoid underestimating calories?For example calorie count of 15.1 and 15.9 grams of almonds, chocolate, butter, oil (I measure liquids in mls.) is significantly different. At the end of the day it adds up.

It really doesn't though. Even if you logged 50 different items in the day, and every one was rounded down by your scale and not up, and they were all very calorie dense like butter, you're talking about less than 50 calories per day. Considering some stuff should actually be rounded down, and not everything you eat is that calorie dense, it will certainly be even less than that.

None of the measurements we use are 100% accurate: weighing food, the calorie counts listed on food, how much fat or moisture does or doesn't cook off, little tiny specks or crumbs of food we leave in pans and on plates, our BMR and TDEE, calories burned with exercise, our weight on the scale. I think most of us have found it all evens out in the end.

Having said that, if it really concerns you, you could add a gram to the weight of any calorie dense food when you log it. I doubt very much it's necessary, but sometimes we get a little bug in our ear that makes us doubt what we're doing, and if adding that extra gram makes you feel more confident in your numbers, I don't see how it would hurt either!

callsitlikeiseeit

mfp cant record a decimal point. round up if you feel the need to.

though the difference would be fairly minuscule

LyndaBSS

I have extra unused calories at the end of most days in case I've underestimated something.

JetJaguar

I would just use the standard rounding rules (15.1 would round to 15, 15.9 rounds to 16). It should even out over time.

NovusDies

There is a margin of error anyway because all of the calorie counts we use are averages. Even if they weighed exactly the same you could not expect 2 pieces of chicken to have the same calorie count.

Our daily energy expenditures are also averages. Unless you are in a coma you do not move the exact same amount each day of your life. The simple act of forgetting your cell phone and walking back in your home to retrieve it before leaving adds non exercise activity to your day.

The odd thing is that over time it works out pretty cleanly if you are not making big mistakes in logging on a regular basis. Even with a few good guesses mixed in because of restaurant food my spreadsheet shows that variance between my logging and my actual progress remains about the same. I tend to log high and when I have checked it in the past my variance has been between +101 and +117.

beulah81

"Even if you logged 50 different items in the day, and every one was rounded down by your scale and not up, and they were all very calorie dense like butter, you're talking about less than 50 calories per day".

Good point!

beulah81

Thank you all for replying! So thankful for this community!

beulah81

kimny72 wrote: »

beulah81 wrote: »

When I weigh out calorie rich foods I log the number the food scale shows me. My scale measures to the nearest gram, ml, etc. My question is, do any of you add decimal points to avoid underestimating calories?For example calorie count of 15.1 and 15.9 grams of almonds, chocolate, butter, oil (I measure liquids in mls.) is significantly different. At the end of the day it adds up.

It really doesn't though. Even if you logged 50 different items in the day, and every one was rounded down by your scale and not up, and they were all very calorie dense like butter, you're talking about less than 50 calories per day. Considering some stuff should actually be rounded down, and not everything you eat is that calorie dense, it will certainly be even less than that.

None of the measurements we use are 100% accurate: weighing food, the calorie counts listed on food, how much fat or moisture does or doesn't cook off, little tiny specks or crumbs of food we leave in pans and on plates, our BMR and TDEE, calories burned with exercise, our weight on the scale. I think most of us have found it all evens out in the end.

Having said that, if it really concerns you, you could add a gram to the weight of any calorie dense food when you log it. I doubt very much it's necessary, but sometimes we get a little bug in our ear that makes us doubt what we're doing, and if adding that extra gram makes you feel more confident in your numbers, I don't see how it would hurt either!

This part was very helpful as well.