Accurate Logging???

BarbaraCarr1981

Hello,

I am trying to follow accurate logging so i can get some good results and lose the last 10lbs. - as a lot of you already know! SO today I've logged everything! Please take a look at my diary and please let me know if eyeballing (wait!!! I know NOT accurate) is okay for things like lettuce/spinach. And I also eyeballed BBQ sauce today because i bbq the steak. But I do know that a TBSp is like a regular sized spoon - so i used that as a guide. Also, with my homemade chili - i added the recipe to mfp and guessed that it would make 4 servings. Im not so sure that i took quit a quarter of it for my supper so a little inaccuracy there too. Is there anything i can do to make these things more accurate especially the recipes that i put into mfp??? Thx

LH85DC

It's actually pretty easy to be accurate with recipes, although I thought it was impossible until Heybales pointed it out to me! When you're making a recipe, enter all the ingredients as you normally would. Then, before you start cooking, weigh and take note of how heavy the dish that you're cooking in is (write it down if you need to). When you're done cooking, weigh the finished product, subtract the weight of the dish/pot/pan/etc., and you'll have the total weight of your recipe! Then it will be really easy to know what one serving size is (if it makes 4 servings, weigh out 1/4th of the total and enjoy!). That does assume that you have a good digital scale though...

IMO eyeballing something as low calorie as lettuce or spinach won't make a huge difference, but condiments can really add up fast. When I have something like bbq sauce at a restaurant, I usually round up when I track it to try to get the most accurate count possible.

Confuzzled4ever

i just weigh or measure (depending what it is) all the ingredients prior to cooking. Then scoop it out with my measuring cup into a big bowl. The number of scoops is the serving size. I use the same measuring cup to serve myself (cause oddly 1 of my cup measures is larger then the other. weird).If it's meat, I'll weight all the meat that goes into the pot. If it's individual steaks/chops/breasts i'll weigh the portion i'm going to eat and all the food stuffs i put on mine. and either cook it separate or put different stuff on it so I don't forget which one is mine. Honestly, I'm not gonna weigh the pot and subtract and all that.. it's enough work to weigh ingredients.

I don't weigh sauces.. i just use an actual teaspoon or tablespoon when applying it.

No method is going to be exact. just get as close as you can and jog an extra few minutes a day.

susannamarie

If you are living alone, it doesn't matter whether your servings are a little off as long as you make it four servings for yourself. Otherwise, weighing it can help.

With the sauce, I really would use an actual measuring spoon to put it on.

cwolfman13

precision is far more important with calorie dense foods...much more so than stuff like spinach which will probably only throw you off by 5-10 calories if you're wrong.

brower47

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

magerum

Eye balling and guessing are not synonmous with accurate.

jwdieter

precision is far more important with calorie dense foods...much more so than stuff like spinach which will probably only throw you off by 5-10 calories if you're wrong.

Werd. Spinach I call "two cups" and IDGAF. BBQ sauce can get a lot more interesting with misses.

cwolfman13

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

meh...looks like a Tbsp...'bout 10 calories I think.

brower47

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

meh...looks like a Tbsp...'bout 10 calories I think.

No way, no more than 5, max. Let's be accurate together!

AllonsYtotheTardis

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

BrainyBurro

always err on the side of UNDER counting your calorie burn and OVER counting your calorie intake if you can't get exact measurements for either. in that way, you're building in pessimism in your calculations so that at the end of the week or month, you're more likely to get a positive surprise on the scale rather than a negative one.

for example, if you think you measured out 1 tbsp of BBQ but don't know for sure, log it as 2 tbsp.

if you think you walked somewhere between 1 and 1.5 miles, but aren't sure... log it as 1 mile.

this won't eliminate the problem with guesstimates, but it will help mitigate the damage later.

BarbaraCarr1981

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

Achrya

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

Weight your pot/pan/container(A). cook food. Weigh again(B). Subtract first weight from second weight.(C) Divide by however many servings you think you're gonna have(D), OR dole out a serving, weigh that(E). Divide C by E and get the number of servings you have.


For example I make soup. My pot is 200 grams. When done the soup+pot weights in at 1100g, meaning I have 900g of soup. I want that bad boy to feed four people. 900/4=225g per serving.

Boom, done.

magerum

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

Still not a problem. Dish out what you want as a serving, weigh it. Weigh the rest, tada number of servings.

CaffeinatedConfectionist

When I've cooked something, I usually enter the recipe, with weighed ingredients, into the recipe builder. After cooking, I weigh the entire end product and divide that weight by the number of servings I want, so that I know how many grams or ounces each individual serving is. Like, I make beans and rice a lot. I'll weigh all the ingredients before cooking the dish and enter the recipe into the recipe builder and set it to, say, 4 servings. Once I've cooked the beans and rice, I will put a new, clean bowl on my food scale, tare it out, and dump all of the beans and rice into that bowl. Then I divide however many grams the entire finished product is by 4, so that I know how many grams each serving is. Usually a recipe of beans and rice is something like 1200 grams, so each serving is something like 300g. Then I usually portion out the servings, put them in individual tupperwares, label, and freeze. Makes accurate logging easy peasy.

brower47

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

You're screwing with us, right?

Weigh the finished product, weigh your portion and then do the math. It's really easy.

Cranquistador

:noway:

SuperSexyDork

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

Weight your pot/pan/container(A). cook food. Weigh again(B). Subtract first weight from second weight.(C) Divide by however many servings you think you're gonna have(D), OR dole out a serving, weigh that(E). Divide C by E and get the number of servings you have.


For example I make soup. My pot is 200 grams. When done the soup+pot weights in at 1100g, meaning I have 900g of soup. I want that bad boy to feed four people. 900/4=225g per serving.

Boom, done.

I'll do one better for you (I do this with some things- not all) Put the number of grams as the number of servings!

That way, you can have as much or as little as you like without all the math, LOL!

PetulantOne

Eyeballing =/= accurate (especially sauces)

^^ This

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Use a food scale. Use the recipe builder. It's not rocket surgery.

Sometimes with the recipe building, one has to have all the recipe consumed before being able to figure out how many servings were in it. There you go- a problem!

Weight your pot/pan/container(A). cook food. Weigh again(B). Subtract first weight from second weight.(C) Divide by however many servings you think you're gonna have(D), OR dole out a serving, weigh that(E). Divide C by E and get the number of servings you have.


For example I make soup. My pot is 200 grams. When done the soup+pot weights in at 1100g, meaning I have 900g of soup. I want that bad boy to feed four people. 900/4=225g per serving.

Boom, done.

I'll do one better for you (I do this with some things- not all) Put the number of grams as the number of servings!

That way, you can have as much or as little as you like without all the math, LOL!

That's a damn good idea!

Mother_Superior