How accurately do you track?

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Replies

  • windra06
    windra06 Posts: 50 Member
    I weigh everything I cook, and check against packet as MFP is terribly inaccurate sometimes!
    If I'm doing a recipie I've done before and logged in MFP I don't bother re weighing anything except the proteins and the difference in veg is usually so tiny.
    When I eat out I have a rough guess and try to be truthful.
    The only thing I don't track is soya milk, I know I use 1 ltr a week in tea and as I'm losing weight consistently I don't bother. If this changed I'd either reduce my calorie goal or log it.
  • RenaSkam
    RenaSkam Posts: 16 Member
    I do not weigh my food, but I do measure and if I have to eyeball something I'd say that I log probably more than what I really do consume. I do a lot of food prep and measure out what I put in each container for lunches during the week so that is super easy to do. Dinner is always a salad during the week also, easy to log. AND I'm now logging everything that passes my lips, everything! Before when I wasn't I also wasn't losing weight, time to be honest with myself and it's working :)
  • mburgess458
    mburgess458 Posts: 480 Member
    Not very accurately at all. Of course I'm more than 4 years into maintenance at this point. I keep logging (roughly) because it helps me not eat way too much. I'm more careful with checking my weight to be sure I'm not gaining weight.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    Roughly these days. Calorie un dense , I will eyeball. Calorie dense I weigh it.
  • gallicinvasion
    gallicinvasion Posts: 1,015 Member
    I use restaurant numbers, which I know are not accurate, package numbers, which mfp members warn are not accurate. I weigh and measure individual servings and recipes. I made bread yesterday. I weighed everything in it, said it had 16 servings. I will not weigh each piece, but will use 1/16th of total recipe for each slice. How accurate is that?
    this is mostly how I roll.

  • JenniferM1234
    JenniferM1234 Posts: 173 Member
    I'm a "close enough" kind of gal.
  • unstableunicorn
    unstableunicorn Posts: 216 Member
    I track what I can, always rounding up to the next 5th gram (35 instead of 32, as an example). For foods I can’t accurately track I guestimate.
  • teresa19622015
    teresa19622015 Posts: 34 Member
    After a while you get used to the amounts. Plus six cherry tomatoes isn’t very different from five...
    But initially I weigh/measure to get an idea.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 1,983 Member
    I'm loosey-goosey on my tracking. Sometimes I'm almost religious about it, only a few things (like a little light oil in a cooking pan) gets weighed and measured very accurately, but I always have a few things I'm not as picky about (like salad greens). Generally the strict tracking keeps my less-strict times more "under control" because it really let's me see and keeps me accountable on what "100 grams of x" really looks like.

    Tracking regularly, with some "religious" days in there, is pretty paramount to keeping my losses on track - every time I back off, my portions start to creep right back to maintenance (or over if I get lax for too long).
  • Safari_Gal_
    Safari_Gal_ Posts: 1,461 Member
    bear2303 wrote: »
    Just curious to know how other MFPrs use this handy little tool. I would say I track with like 80-90% accuracy.

    I started out tracking really really accurately but as time went on I got a little lazier and a little less accurate. If i make something from scratch I usually just take my best guess and choose something that looks like it has similar caloric value.

    For me, tracking every single bite every day was daunting so I do my best but I also give myself some grace. Curious as to what works for you all?

    Hi @bear2303 ! I track and weigh like a squirrel with nuts most of the time when
    Home... But then -I eat out a lot - so I tend to guesstimate portions and ounces then..but most of what I order is kinda simple like salmon and vegetables or venison and salad...it’s just the absence of weighing it while out that proves difficult. So if I have to choose...I’ll overestimate instead of under to be safe.

    Guess I could bring a purse scale .. ☺️ now there’s an idea. 💡


  • ElReyDelMundo365
    ElReyDelMundo365 Posts: 14 Member
    As accurately as possible. I'm trying to get my numbers as accurate as possible, including vitamins and minerals.
  • ElizabethKalmbach
    ElizabethKalmbach Posts: 1,416 Member
    I cook a lot of meals at home, so I weigh and use liquid measure when I'm making a recipe, and then I eyeball servings as I place them into containers. Since I pre-cook for myself for about a week, I will eventually eat everything in a batch of whatever - but what I eat on a specific day was an eyeballed proportion of what I cooked that Saturday.

    I also measure things into servings when I get new dishes or tuppers, that way I can eyeball and average better when I'm packing up restaurant food left overs without a scale or improvising a lunch in a hurry.

    I'm not that close with my exercise estimates, though, and tend to end up tweaking my calories from one week to the next as my workout routines change. Generally speaking, my first guess on exercise burn appears to be conservative, as my "lousy estimations" generally have me losing weight *faster* than I want, and not slower. I've gotten pretty good with step tracking, but accounting for what I've done with weight lifting is strangely difficult for me on the first go.
  • bearly63
    bearly63 Posts: 734 Member
    bear2303 wrote: »
    Just curious to know how other MFPrs use this handy little tool. I would say I track with like 80-90% accuracy.

    I started out tracking really really accurately but as time went on I got a little lazier and a little less accurate. If i make something from scratch I usually just take my best guess and choose something that looks like it has similar caloric value.

    For me, tracking every single bite every day was daunting so I do my best but I also give myself some grace. Curious as to what works for you all?

    Hi @bear2303 ! I track and weigh like a squirrel with nuts most of the time when
    Home... But then -I eat out a lot - so I tend to guesstimate portions and ounces then..but most of what I order is kinda simple like salmon and vegetables or venison and salad...it’s just the absence of weighing it while out that proves difficult. So if I have to choose...I’ll overestimate instead of under to be safe.

    Guess I could bring a purse scale .. ☺️ now there’s an idea. 💡


    Wouldn't it be cool if there was an app for that. You put the food on your phone somehow and get an accurate weight in grams. Hmmmm.....wheels are turning! B)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,879 Member
    I don't log anymore, but when I did I was more accurate with calorie dense foods...weighed my almonds, peanut butter, meats, etc. I was pretty loose with veggies and fruit and never weighed those things. I didn't weigh packaged foods, bred slices, etc and just went off the label. I usually didn't even log meals at a restaurant, but I didn't eat out all that often.
  • mattig89ch
    mattig89ch Posts: 2,648 Member
    edited October 2019
    I try to track every crumb, or maybe over-estimate as well.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,846 Member
    I do my best to log as accurately as possible but the food values I find (I always take an average from MFP search suggestions if I don't have the exact info from food products) must be erroneous because after almost two months I am down 20 lbs. whereas my daily summary forecasts for even one month's work were well below my loss so far in nearly two. I don't cheat so it's either that or the exercise values I find (again, I use an average from my pedometer reading and MFP suggestion) are similarly out of whack. Or I have the dreaded slow metabolism? Frustrating because I would like more motivating progress, though I don't want to sound too worked up about it because it is still going in the right direction and this steady pace is perhaps more conducive to lifestyle change. Others find the same problem?

    I'd encourage you to start your own thread to ask for advise, but 20 pounds in less than two months is great! How many more pounds do you need to lose to reach goal?

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    If you do start your own thread, please change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings so we can look for common logging errors.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,668 Member
    I'm in maintenance, and have been for several years. Although I track most of what I eat, I never weigh anything and rarely measure it. Even when I was losing weight, I didn't weigh food, though I did measure, at least the first time I ate something. (i.e. a bowl of cereal: the first time I used measuring cups to see how much I was eating, after that I just eyeballed it.) When estimating, I tend to assume higher rather than lower numbers. My calorie burn is higher than mfp gives me, so it evens out the inaccuracies.