Counting Calories Accurately - Tips & Methods
MsWallwoman
Posts: 161
Hey All,
I came across this information and found it useful. Thought I would share in case anyone else could use some tips and methods for counting calories more accurately.
"Counting calories is a tough mindset for people to get into, so usually they just guess. Then they have a tremendously difficult time understanding why they are not losing weight even though they are sure they are “only eating X calories”. They swear up and down that they are counting calories accurately, and then the truth comes out. They are guessing at portion sizes, they are not weighing things, they are using generic brands, etc. Unfortunately, we often see what we want to believe, so you must assume that every estimation you make will be too low, even if you try to overestimate. The only fix for this is to be as precise as possible.
This level of precision is not necessary for everyone. If you are losing fat as expected by guessing or being less precise, then good for you. This advice is meant for those that think they are tracking accurately, but somehow still are not losing fat as measured over at least a 3 week period. If that’s the case, you need to crack down.
Here are some great tips and methods to counting calories accurately:
Everything needs to be weighed, so buy a kitchen scale. Find one that is digital and can do both metric and imperial (grams and ounces). Weigh in grams if possible though, it’s more accurate for counting calories.
Free-pouring liquids (milk, juice) and tiny ingredients like spices, baking soda, etc, can be measured by volume, not weight. This means cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc.
Never, ever, use normal silverware to estimate a teaspoon or tablespoon, they are not even close.
Stuff like peanut butter, honey, mayo, mustard, ketchup, etc, are not considered free-pouring, so weigh them. A lot of people become very sad when they weigh their peanut butter for the first time.
Oatmeal is not a free pouring liquid. That means it must be weighed, not measured in a cup. A true 1/2 cup of oatmeal is 40g and 150 calories. When most people use a 1/2 cup measure, they get closer to 60g, which is about 220 calories. Same goes for stuff like rice, broccoli, etc. They are not free-pouring liquids, so get the scale out.
A banana is not a free-pouring liquid, so guess what? That’s right, it’s not “1/2 of a medium banana”, it’s “57g of banana”.
Never record “1 chicken breast” or “1 pork chop”. Use “126g lean white chicken, roasted”, or “227g boneless pork loin, broiled”.
If a food listed in MFP only has a volume measurement and it’s not a free pouring liquid, ignore it, go the label or the producer’s website and find the calories by weight. If this fails, consider not eating that food. I’m not kidding.
Nothing is ever measured as “heaping”, you always level off the tops of measuring cups.
Always weigh things, even meat, raw wherever possible, because food loses or gains water and therefore weight during cooking.
Nutrition labels must specify pre-cooked weight, unless it’s a packaged, cooked food, in which case it lists the cooked weight. Take this into account.
When weighing “sticky” foods like mayo, put your bread on the scale, zero it out. Then apply the mayo and record the net amount. This way you are not guessing about the amount left sticking to the spreader and whatnot.
Similarly, you don’t guess at 1 tbsp of ketchup on those eggs, you put the plate of eggs on the scale, zero it out, squirt on the ketchup, weigh it.
Splenda has calories, 4 per gram. Record it.
Cooking spray has calories, 7 per 1 second of spray (it’s rounded down on the label per 1/4 second spray). Record it.
Cream in your coffee? Weigh it and record it. Don’t assume a “splash” is one tablespoon, it’s usually closer to three.
Do not pick “generic” anything in the database if you know the brand. There are differences in calories between Kraft, Skippy, Hellman’s, etc that really do matter.
If the info on a food looks suspect, check the number of confirmations from MFP users. If it has less than half a dozen, go look it up yourself on the label or website. Do this anyway for foods you eat a lot, it may expose errors when counting calories and macros.
For recipes, set them up in MFP, and record the entire dish size by weight. So you weigh the whole damn casserole, then you weigh your portion of it, and record the number of portions from that. You don’t estimate with crap like “1 bowl” or the like. Yes, this might require that you weigh your casserole dishes and write them down and do some math. It’s a bit of work, but only has to be done once for any given recipe.
If someone else cooks your meals for you, get their recipes and enter them in MFP. If you can’t do this for some reason, stop eating what they make and start cooking for yourself. What’s the alternative? Well, you can keep guessing and stay fat.
Record your frequent meals as food groupings in MFP under the “My Meals” tab for quick recall. This is a huge time saver because you can add your common meals from this list and then adjust portions if need be for that particular meal (like mustard on the sandwich today instead of mayo for example). Recipes are less flexible."
Hope this helps
This all came from:
http://www.fitnessfactreview.com/the-art-science-of-calorie-counting/
I came across this information and found it useful. Thought I would share in case anyone else could use some tips and methods for counting calories more accurately.
"Counting calories is a tough mindset for people to get into, so usually they just guess. Then they have a tremendously difficult time understanding why they are not losing weight even though they are sure they are “only eating X calories”. They swear up and down that they are counting calories accurately, and then the truth comes out. They are guessing at portion sizes, they are not weighing things, they are using generic brands, etc. Unfortunately, we often see what we want to believe, so you must assume that every estimation you make will be too low, even if you try to overestimate. The only fix for this is to be as precise as possible.
This level of precision is not necessary for everyone. If you are losing fat as expected by guessing or being less precise, then good for you. This advice is meant for those that think they are tracking accurately, but somehow still are not losing fat as measured over at least a 3 week period. If that’s the case, you need to crack down.
Here are some great tips and methods to counting calories accurately:
Everything needs to be weighed, so buy a kitchen scale. Find one that is digital and can do both metric and imperial (grams and ounces). Weigh in grams if possible though, it’s more accurate for counting calories.
Free-pouring liquids (milk, juice) and tiny ingredients like spices, baking soda, etc, can be measured by volume, not weight. This means cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc.
Never, ever, use normal silverware to estimate a teaspoon or tablespoon, they are not even close.
Stuff like peanut butter, honey, mayo, mustard, ketchup, etc, are not considered free-pouring, so weigh them. A lot of people become very sad when they weigh their peanut butter for the first time.
Oatmeal is not a free pouring liquid. That means it must be weighed, not measured in a cup. A true 1/2 cup of oatmeal is 40g and 150 calories. When most people use a 1/2 cup measure, they get closer to 60g, which is about 220 calories. Same goes for stuff like rice, broccoli, etc. They are not free-pouring liquids, so get the scale out.
A banana is not a free-pouring liquid, so guess what? That’s right, it’s not “1/2 of a medium banana”, it’s “57g of banana”.
Never record “1 chicken breast” or “1 pork chop”. Use “126g lean white chicken, roasted”, or “227g boneless pork loin, broiled”.
If a food listed in MFP only has a volume measurement and it’s not a free pouring liquid, ignore it, go the label or the producer’s website and find the calories by weight. If this fails, consider not eating that food. I’m not kidding.
Nothing is ever measured as “heaping”, you always level off the tops of measuring cups.
Always weigh things, even meat, raw wherever possible, because food loses or gains water and therefore weight during cooking.
Nutrition labels must specify pre-cooked weight, unless it’s a packaged, cooked food, in which case it lists the cooked weight. Take this into account.
When weighing “sticky” foods like mayo, put your bread on the scale, zero it out. Then apply the mayo and record the net amount. This way you are not guessing about the amount left sticking to the spreader and whatnot.
Similarly, you don’t guess at 1 tbsp of ketchup on those eggs, you put the plate of eggs on the scale, zero it out, squirt on the ketchup, weigh it.
Splenda has calories, 4 per gram. Record it.
Cooking spray has calories, 7 per 1 second of spray (it’s rounded down on the label per 1/4 second spray). Record it.
Cream in your coffee? Weigh it and record it. Don’t assume a “splash” is one tablespoon, it’s usually closer to three.
Do not pick “generic” anything in the database if you know the brand. There are differences in calories between Kraft, Skippy, Hellman’s, etc that really do matter.
If the info on a food looks suspect, check the number of confirmations from MFP users. If it has less than half a dozen, go look it up yourself on the label or website. Do this anyway for foods you eat a lot, it may expose errors when counting calories and macros.
For recipes, set them up in MFP, and record the entire dish size by weight. So you weigh the whole damn casserole, then you weigh your portion of it, and record the number of portions from that. You don’t estimate with crap like “1 bowl” or the like. Yes, this might require that you weigh your casserole dishes and write them down and do some math. It’s a bit of work, but only has to be done once for any given recipe.
If someone else cooks your meals for you, get their recipes and enter them in MFP. If you can’t do this for some reason, stop eating what they make and start cooking for yourself. What’s the alternative? Well, you can keep guessing and stay fat.
Record your frequent meals as food groupings in MFP under the “My Meals” tab for quick recall. This is a huge time saver because you can add your common meals from this list and then adjust portions if need be for that particular meal (like mustard on the sandwich today instead of mayo for example). Recipes are less flexible."
Hope this helps
This all came from:
http://www.fitnessfactreview.com/the-art-science-of-calorie-counting/
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Replies
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Agreed 100000 million percent. If I didn't weigh my peanut butter, I'd easily overconsume several hundred calories each morning because my own 2 tbsp measurement is much bigger than 32g on a scale. I love having a food scale--it takes out all the guesswork at home.0
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I try to make these points...though not so eloquently, every time someone tells me they're doing everything right and it just doesn't work for them. 9 times out of 10 they're not even remotely doing everything right. I don't know how many people have told me, "of course my chicken breast is 4 oz...that's what the package says." No silly...the package states a serving of chicken breast is 4 oz and XXX calories...an entire actual chicken breast is usually closer to 8 oz...and the list goes on and on.
Obviously, you can't take your food scale with you every where you go...but at least while you're home and preparing your own meals, you can be pretty damned close to accurate. When I was losing and counting calories I restricted how often I ate out for that very reason...and usually had friends over to my house rather than going over to their houses for dinner.0 -
Some nice tips here! I don't get too precise except with really high calorie foods but these are definitely some great ideas. I have also seen a few people having issues with the count being wrong on just one or two items they eat regularly, so it's worth paying extra close attention to your favorite foods, since an error there could potentially happen daily or almost daily and really throw off your efforts.
Thanks for the post!0 -
Accuracy is definitely something that is important, and it's something I really need to improve in my own logging. There are some very good tips here, and a couple of things I hadn't thought of.
But I can't help but look at that list and wonder, when does it cross the line from meticulous accuracy to OCD territory?0 -
I have a food scale and use it a lot. But my beef is that so many of the foods I look for in the database do not have values based on weight, but rather only on volume (e.g. so many cups).
When I find one like that, if I can find the info elsewhere online I enter it into the database as a new food entry so that others can find it.0 -
Brilliant post, thank you, I've saved that one for future reference 0
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bump0
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Bump, because I love this post : )0
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I made a thread yesterday asking for using grams not arbitrary portions, and basically the usual MFP flame war erupted
Good luck! 0 -
If a food listed in MFP only has a volume measurement and it’s not a free pouring liquid, ignore it, go the label or the producer’s website and find the calories by weight. If this fails, consider not eating that food. I’m not kidding.
That advice makes me sad. : (
I know people do that sort of thing, but I hate to think of people giving up foods just because their calorie count might have a margin of error of more than a couple calories.0 -
Instead of denying the food, search for estimates. If a pretzel has on average 350 kcal and the average pretzel weighs 80g, weight you pretzel and take a guess instead of not eating it at all. Spare some calories at the end of the day to incorporate possible wrong estimates if you need to be very precise.
//Edit: Actually, just googling 'pretzel' automatically gives you nutritional info based on averages on the right side of the screen. Of course it's "rough", but then again, nothing is exactly what it says on the box and at the end of the day, the most damage comes from people manipulating themselves, not because the pretzel had 15kcal more or whatever.0 -
I do these things 95% of the time. The next person that asks me how/why my loss has been so successful, I'll point them to this thread. Thank you!!0
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I do these things for most things. However I should point out that if you truly want to be thorough, you need to tabulate the total calories by hand. Don't just assume that the numbers that MFP outputs when you input your items, when they calculate, are accurate. The only exception I can see is if your numbers exactly line up to your default macros.0
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Great original post, agree with everything!0
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Great tips - thank you! I will be changing some habits.....:flowerforyou:0
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This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
0 -
This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.0 -
This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.
Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.0 -
since when does peanut butter have calories?0
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Thanks for posting this!0
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This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.
Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.
I place the jar on the scale, tare it, scoop and measure it that way. If it says -16g, you have a tbsp of pb! I find this the easiest way.0 -
Look, I weigh everything at home, but if I'm out at a restaurant or eating at a friend's house, I'm going to need to eyeball. My takeaway from your thread is that you wanted to do away with all non-grams measurements. I didn't say anything on there since I figured everyone else was probably saying plenty, but there's something to be said for having ALL the options available.
HOW can you learn to EYEBALL accurately If you DO NOT see the true measurements frequently? I learned so quickly after I began to use a scale what 4oz REALLY looked like, or 30g of various vegetables! An ounce of carrots? I can estimate that too! BUT it took me some visual time Actually measuring these things to be able to ESTIMATE while out there without my scale.
Go ahead, eyeball everything and you become your own demise, even my eyes need refreshers.0 -
This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
Put it ONTO whatever it is you'll eat it with! Sandwich? Tare the scale with the bread on it, and spread on the peanut butter! The new weight shown on the scale, is your peanut butter! Best way, no mess!0 -
Wow, great advice. Thanks! I've actually started to weigh more than measure mainly because I've found it to be easier and more accurate. But great tips on the zeroing out on the bread then adding the mustard, didn't think of that. This is really helpful!0
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Bump for reference0
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This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.
Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.
You could weigh the container of peanut butter before and after0 -
I have been wondering about how to measure peanut butter as well! I have not had any PBJ's for that reason. I knew I wouldn't eyeball 2 Tablespoons good enough (and will probably need 3 or 4 T), plus I was going to be irritated if I used a Tablespoon and a bunch of the peanut butter stuck to it...Thanks!0
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Instead of denying the food, search for estimates. If a pretzel has on average 350 kcal and the average pretzel weighs 80g, weight you pretzel and take a guess instead of not eating it at all. Spare some calories at the end of the day to incorporate possible wrong estimates if you need to be very precise.
//Edit: Actually, just googling 'pretzel' automatically gives you nutritional info based on averages on the right side of the screen. Of course it's "rough", but then again, nothing is exactly what it says on the box and at the end of the day, the most damage comes from people manipulating themselves, not because the pretzel had 15kcal more or whatever.
This exactly! My thing is yes accuracy is awesome and that is what I strive to be but if your giving up food because you may be off a few calories well then what a life you will have!! Right?? Yes I want to lose weight. Yes I have cut out food. I have even cut out food simply because I do not know the actual calorie count but I am not trying to get so anal that I can not be happy.
Edited to say and not ALL foods have the accurate calorie counts listed. They found out that this artic something or other Icecream was not the 150 calories that it said but more like 250!0 -
This is going to sound stupid, but...
How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad.
That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.
Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.
You could weigh the container of peanut butter before and after
OMG! Epiphany! Thank you!0 -
Great post!!! I normally weigh everything but my scales battary died two days ago so have been "guessing" for two days now then went and got a new battary this morning and then got to work and weigh my guessed lunch OH how wrong i was and these were eye guessing at things i have weigh out heaps of times !!! back to weighing everything for me !! to save time i pre weigh things for my lunches breakfast etc so im not trying to weigh everything in the morning when im trying to get out for work and less chance of cheating !0
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