Can you kindly look at my food diary for logging errors?
Replies
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@AnnPT77 Thanks for the diary review. The reverse weigh is genius and may resolve an issue my husband and I have when he cooks. He is Asian makes AMAZING stir-fries with a ton of veggies.. but I can never eat them because I know the sauces can add up and I don't want to make him sit there with the food scale. So for the last 2 months he cooks his food and I cook mine... but he is a much better cook than me. So if I could weigh the sauce container before and after.. that would totally help.
I mainly use cooking sprays for everything and I haven't been logging that. And for tortillas I haven't weighed those individually so that is something to change.
I am in a season where my NEAT is naturally low but that is changing next week. I try to park far away, move, clean stuff. I sweep AND mop the whole house even though I have one of those electric cleaners. But I am in my last semester of nursing school so a ton of time is spent sitting and studying and I only leave the house like twice a week. For the next 6 weeks, I will have clinicals 4 days a week so I'll be doing a ton more. I hope that will get my NEAT up!
The scale trick works great for oil sprays, IMO. They may be zero calories per label, but that's for (usually) a 1/3 second spray or something like that. Maybe you spray that little, but I don't. It's usually longer, maybe up to 2-3g even for a small pan (up to maybe 30 calories, which is small, but not zero).0 -
Just a couple more ideas—
If you are eating fast food on your « cheat » days, you can usually find the nutritional info online, so log that chick fil a sandwich.
If you are logging carrot cake, and don’t know the amount, look at several entries. Choose one in the middle or maybe you find the one you actually have (eg Costco carrot cake).
No way could I keep to 1200 calories a day on the regular (I find 1400 tough!) and I am guessing you are over by 100-200 calories a day. Probably most of us are anyway.
I find when I eat more vegetables, I eat better in general, but for me the important thing to focus on is protein. It might be something else for you, but what will make you most successful?
It’s all a work in progress, and good luck with your nursing degree!0 -
If you have lost 20 lbs in 8 weeks, you are doing great. Even if the initial loss was water weight, the fact that you haven't gained it all back says that you were also losing fat. There is always a slowdown when the water in your system rebalances.
I would watch out for the calories burnt that your watch gives you. Mine registers driving and petting the dog as steps because my watch moves and when driving my HR goes up. I enter exercise manually and only eat back the calories from deliberate exercise.0 -
Hey guys,
Being a little more vulnerable than I'd like to be here but my calorie deficit is not adding up to my weight loss. I have been consistently losing but I am about 8lbs up from where I should be based on my deficit and apple watch energy burned. I've been holding my breath for some kind of whoosh where I catch up, but its been a month and the "catch up" number is growing. I know it has to be a logging error somewhere.
So before you look:
- I am 5'5, 248lbs, female, sedentary, I take a 30 minute walk a day and that is it for exercise. My Apple Watch says I burn 2900 calories a day.
- My calories are set to 1200 a day. I have one ginormous cheat day a week that I log as 3000-4000 calories. I've set it to 1200 temporarily because I wanted to be sure I was in a deficit and compare my info to what the scale said to set my future deficit.
- I weigh most everything, but I eyeball my lower calorie vegetables. When I create recipes I also follow this rule and since I am the only one who eats my meal prep, I just divide the recipe by however many days I eat it.
Anyways, I saw that I've been logging chicken breast at 4 oz for 120 calories. But when I look it up on google, I see that it should be 180 calories... I thought it might be helpful to have some more experienced loggers take a look.
Some of the difference is likely due to there being different calories in the same weight of cooked vs raw meat. Here is my standard answer on finding accurate entries in the MFP database:
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
For cooked chicken breast: "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"
These are the values I get for 4 oz/113 grams of cooked and raw chicken breast, respectively:
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered, as is any MFP entry for meat that does not include something along the lines of "cooked" or "raw."
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)1 -
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Diary review: As expected, no big insights from Ms. Weirdo Vegetarian over here.
If I wanted to be most exact, I'd weigh relatively calorie-dense things like mayo, oil, milk rather than using volume measures. In case you haven't figured out the easy method: Put the whole jar of mayo/oil, carton of milk, hunk of meat/cheese - whatever - on the scale. (Leave the top off if it has a removeable top.) Zero/tare the scale. Dip out, pour out, spray or cut off the amount you want to use, leaving the part you don't want to use on the scale. Read the negative number on the scale. That's the amount you took out: Log that.
You should be able to find gram-quantified entries for most of these things in the MFP database, though it may take a bit of searching. Once you find one and use it, it'll stay in your recent/frequent list for easy access, as long as you keep using it regularly.
Also: Pancakes. Are these pre-made pancakes, like toaster pancakes? If not, is there no oil used? (Maybe there isn't, if a nonstick pan, but cooking oil is a common thing to overlook. Others are condiments, dressings, beverages, marinades, bites/licks/tastes while eating or cleaning up, . . . .).
I'd weigh things rather than using "per piece" from a package, too. Maybe you're already doing this, and translating a weight into a number of pieces to log it, but I'd expect more fractional pieces in there if that were the case, not sure. Packages can be surprisingly far off, so weight may be more precise. (I usually find it easier, too, but YMMV.)
Sorry, that's all the feedback I've got. There's not huge overlap in what you eat and what I eat, so I can't quick-react to whether the calorie entries are plausible magnitudes, or not. We do both eat the Costco cauliflower rice . . . but you seem to eat 1/2 cup, and I eat the whole freakin' multi-serving bag at once (around 455 grams, which is around 5 servings according to the package, little over 100 calories). I'm mentioning this not to criticize you, but to underscore how differently we eat . . . and because I think it's kind of amusing, TBH, how big the difference is. Again, not me right, you wrong, because I don't think about eating that way. Just different, and that's fine. Differences make the world interesting, IMO.
Best wishes!
I concur with these measuring recommendations - everything in grams and make sure oil spray is indeed the short burst recommended on the can
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20 pounds in 7 weeks == 2.85I know 20lbs sounds amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
You were expecting 2.58
Sounds about dead on to me. I think you're making a mistake discounting 7 pounds of the loss, which you state was water. How do you know that was all water? And how do you know you haven't gained back most of that water as time went on, especially after carb heavy cheat days?
Remember that your TDEE estimate will drop as you lose weight. Have you factored that in? MFP doesn't automatically adjust that for you, so your net calories calculation will be off a little if you haven't. 20 pounds could be 100 calories per day difference from when you started.
I looked at your diary. The coffee creamer jumped out at me. You may be over-estimating that. You say 4 tbsp for 80 calories. For the longest time I went by the serving size on my coffee creamer, and then I actually tracked it, from opening the bottle to finished, how many cups I had. And it turned out I was getting around 2.8x as many servings from the bottle than the bottle said. Which sounds unusual of course, since often the quoted serving sizes are too small. Of course YMMV depending how much you personally add. End result, I found it was about 0.37 tbsp per coffee for me. With a typical 3 coffees per day, my diary was adding about 50 calories more than I was using, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That's a potential difference of 5 pounds in a year, just from the creamer!
I also don't think you can count a cheat day as being X calories over means Y pounds gained. We see this from people on YT tracking huge cheat days and their stats before and after, and it's also my experience. I assume the body adjusts to what you're doing most of the days. One outlier day like that means more calories burned processing, more body heat generated, more NEAT going on, etc., so it doesn't all end up as fat.3 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Hey guys,
Being a little more vulnerable than I'd like to be here but my calorie deficit is not adding up to my weight loss. I have been consistently losing but I am about 8lbs up from where I should be based on my deficit and apple watch energy burned. I've been holding my breath for some kind of whoosh where I catch up, but its been a month and the "catch up" number is growing. I know it has to be a logging error somewhere.
So before you look:
- I am 5'5, 248lbs, female, sedentary, I take a 30 minute walk a day and that is it for exercise. My Apple Watch says I burn 2900 calories a day.
- My calories are set to 1200 a day. I have one ginormous cheat day a week that I log as 3000-4000 calories. I've set it to 1200 temporarily because I wanted to be sure I was in a deficit and compare my info to what the scale said to set my future deficit.
- I weigh most everything, but I eyeball my lower calorie vegetables. When I create recipes I also follow this rule and since I am the only one who eats my meal prep, I just divide the recipe by however many days I eat it.
Anyways, I saw that I've been logging chicken breast at 4 oz for 120 calories. But when I look it up on google, I see that it should be 180 calories... I thought it might be helpful to have some more experienced loggers take a look.
Some of the difference is likely due to there being different calories in the same weight of cooked vs raw meat. Here is my standard answer on finding accurate entries in the MFP database:
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
For cooked chicken breast: "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"
These are the values I get for 4 oz/113 grams of cooked and raw chicken breast, respectively:
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered, as is any MFP entry for meat that does not include something along the lines of "cooked" or "raw."
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)
Thank you!!! This is super helpful. I wondered why the green checks all said something different. My food with labels are really straight forward but like for tonight I was looking up salmon and I had to cross check myself.0 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
20 pounds in 7 weeks == 2.85I know 20lbs sounds amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
You were expecting 2.58
Sounds about dead on to me. I think you're making a mistake discounting 7 pounds of the loss, which you state was water. How do you know that was all water? And how do you know you haven't gained back most of that water as time went on, especially after carb heavy cheat days?
Remember that your TDEE estimate will drop as you lose weight. Have you factored that in? MFP doesn't automatically adjust that for you, so your net calories calculation will be off a little if you haven't. 20 pounds could be 100 calories per day difference from when you started.
I looked at your diary. The coffee creamer jumped out at me. You may be over-estimating that. You say 4 tbsp for 80 calories. For the longest time I went by the serving size on my coffee creamer, and then I actually tracked it, from opening the bottle to finished, how many cups I had. And it turned out I was getting around 2.8x as many servings from the bottle than the bottle said. Which sounds unusual of course, since often the quoted serving sizes are too small. Of course YMMV depending how much you personally add. End result, I found it was about 0.37 tbsp per coffee for me. With a typical 3 coffees per day, my diary was adding about 50 calories more than I was using, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That's a potential difference of 5 pounds in a year, just from the creamer!
I also don't think you can count a cheat day as being X calories over means Y pounds gained. We see this from people on YT tracking huge cheat days and their stats before and after, and it's also my experience. I assume the body adjusts to what you're doing most of the days. One outlier day like that means more calories burned processing, more body heat generated, more NEAT going on, etc., so it doesn't all end up as fat.
I assume the first week was a lot of water based on what I weighed at the start of December and how much I gain when I have my cheat meals. I had a huge cheat day for my Bday last week (wednesday) and I just got back to my precheat weight yesterday. But I am not a scientist-- so maybe I am not counting that 7lbs fairly and I just need to wait and watch more.
I do weigh the coffee creamer and measure out 60 grams = 4tbsp. I am one of those who likes a little coffee with her creamer and so I had to scale it way back. I probably drank 500 calories a day just in creamer before. But I wish I was over estimating!
And your point about more calories meaning more activity is valid. I definitely have more energy on my cheat day and the day after and I am much more active on those days.
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Another comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.0
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Another comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.
Thanks! That does raise a little question that I have. When you get a ground beef that is 80/20... if you drain/rinse the grease, do you still log like normal? I normally do, but it seems like a lot of the fat would go down the drain. Of course, I'm not sure how one would measure that.
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Thanks everyone for all the input! I got some good ideas and things to think about. Closing back up my diary now, just because I feel like I'm reluctant to log honestly when it's open for the world to see.
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Weigh rawAnother comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.
Thanks! That does raise a little question that I have. When you get a ground beef that is 80/20... if you drain/rinse the grease, do you still log like normal? I normally do, but it seems like a lot of the fat would go down the drain. Of course, I'm not sure how one would measure that.
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She has a point about the rendered fat not getting eaten.
Whether the point really matters in the big picture (or not) is debatable. But it is a point.
There is not real answer other than it would be a source of error. You can try to guess.
Food data central has at least one entry for ground beef that is rinced before eating.
If really really interested you could weigh raw and log based on that, collect the pan drippings, cool them, skim the fat, weigh the skimmed fat and then remove the corresponding Calories
I'm pretty precise with my logging (or at least used to be) and have run several experiments for the *kitten* of it. I have yet to do the one I described. But I could see me doing it if I was
a frequent consumer of ground beef 🤷♂️0 -
Another comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.
Thanks! That does raise a little question that I have. When you get a ground beef that is 80/20... if you drain/rinse the grease, do you still log like normal? I normally do, but it seems like a lot of the fat would go down the drain. Of course, I'm not sure how one would measure that.
If you discard the grease from ground beef, use a cooked entry. When I grill hamburgers, I weigh it cooked and use a cooked entry.
Ditto for bacon. When I am using raw bacon AND its fat in a recipe, I use the raw entry. When I'm having cooked bacon on something, I use a cooked entry.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Another comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.
Thanks! That does raise a little question that I have. When you get a ground beef that is 80/20... if you drain/rinse the grease, do you still log like normal? I normally do, but it seems like a lot of the fat would go down the drain. Of course, I'm not sure how one would measure that.
If you discard the grease from ground beef, use a cooked entry. When I grill hamburgers, I weigh it cooked and use a cooked entry.
Ditto for bacon. When I am using raw bacon AND its fat in a recipe, I use the raw entry. When I'm having cooked bacon on something, I use a cooked entry.
I'll try that. At the end of the day it is not a huge deal but I like that Costco 80/20 for cheap.0
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