How should you weigh and track food macros ?

davidxfit01

I am new to tracking my macros and weighing my food. But how do I know I’m doing it correctly haha. Do I enter the food nutrition when it’s raw or cooked? Which foods do you weigh by oz or grams?

Lietchi

Most food database entries are for raw food, so weighing cooked will not be correct (some foods lose water and weigh less for the same amount of calories when cooked, others absorb moisture and will weigh more when cooked for the same amount of calories).
If you do weigh food cooked, use a food database entry specifically for a cooked version of that food (usually specified in the name of the food).

I weigh raw 99% of the time, since that's more accurate.
I also always weigh in grams, it's a much more accurate unit of measure (and I've never known anything else either, being European).

AnnPT77

What lietchi said. I'm in the US, don't usually use grams as a unit of measure, but do use grams to weigh my food, because it's more precise. (Most food scales will display either ounces & tenths, or grams. Since there are roughly 28 grams in an ounce, and only ten tenths, grams are a little more precise. Then, use a food database entry that has grams as a serving size option.)

For liquids, it's OK to use volume measures (measuring cups, tablespoons, milliliters - that sort of thing), and a matching database entry. For non-liquids, it's more accurate to use weight. Something like a quarter-cup of walnut meats will have more or fewer walnuts in it, depending on how broken up and/or settled together the chunks are. It can make a surprisingly large difference.

Also, don't pick super lowball calorie entries from the database (it's crowd-sourced, so entries can be wrong), and ideally check against an authoritative source (like the USDA Food Central Database) the first time you log a food. After that first time, things you eat semi-regularly will stay in your recent/frequent food lists in MFP, and come up first when you're logging.

Don't use other people's recipe-type entries ("ham sandwich", "lasagna, one serving" kind of thing), except in a rare case that you need to estimate calories of a food you ate at a friend's home or something. You don't know what was in the sandwich or lasagna recipe when the MFP person put those entries in the database. If you make the food, log the ingredients, either in your daily log, or via adding an MFP meal or recipe. That will be more accurate.

I know this seems fussy, but there's a learning curve at first, and some investment in getting your own personal foods, meals, and recipes set up. After a short time, you'll understand all the tips and tricks, and logging will be quite quick and easy.