Weighing food - go for nutritional goals or what?

insomnical

I was gifted a pretty decent scale yesterday and today's the first day I decided to use it. I decided to make an egg white omelette with onion & mushroom, and weighed it out according to what a serving would be (I used HealthAliciousNess.com to kinda get an idea on nutritional values & what my personal goals are).

I only did two egg whites.. but 100 grams each of onion and mushrooms was way more than I was anticipating! I also realized I put more than the two tablespoons of my creamer in my coffee. I'm probably going to give up on this brand and go back to the soy creamer I was using last year.

So here's the question: do you weigh out your ingredients in a recipe? Do you have nutritional goals and just piece it together from what you have? Again, today's the first time I've used it, so I'm new to this whole thing. What's the best way to get the most out of weighing your food?

ShannonMpls

What's the best way to get the most out of weighing your food?

In my opinion, it's to assure that you're adhering to the portion size of calorie dense and harder to estimate foods like peanut butter, potato chips, even rice and pasta.

I use my scale daily (5-6 times most days!) even a year and a half into maintenance. I'm less likely to weigh things like spinach, but I weigh my peanut butter every single morning. When I am making a recipe and already have my scale out, sure, I'll sometimes weigh the vegetable ingredients.

I almost always weigh meat (in its raw state) because I care a lot about consuming enough protein, so in that case it's not about limiting calories but maximizing protein intake.

My best advice: Get used to using your scale for most things. Don't sweat it about a small portion of spinach or lettuce. And yes, 100g of onion would be a LOT in a two egg omelet!

Shuuma

When I first got my scale I weighed everything for a week--just to see what I was actually eating. I didn't do anything other than test out what I was eating. It's alarming to see how much spinach is 2 cups and how little that Tablespoon looks for the creamer for the coffee. Especially when you think you're doing well! I apparently have zero concept of portion sizes.

Then, I started weighing everything to fit my macros and found that I had much more wiggle room (especially with veggies) than I ever knew or understood.

So, to answer your questions, yes. I weigh the ingredients in a recipe as I add them. I then portion the entire meal into the servings the recipe says it should make. If it makes more, I adjust my recipe accordingly. If you put the ingredients into MFP's recipe builder, it will give you macros per serving and you can change how many servings it made.

My advice is to just weigh everything so you can start building a mental idea of what sizes equal what nutritionally.

Francl27

I just pick a portion size I want to eat and weigh that, pretty much. But sometimes, yeah, if I'm low on calories or something, I'll balance things out for my nutrition goals (like, I can have 50g of noodles, 4oz of chicken and 100g of green beans, for example).

For recipes, I'll do the same thing, but if a recipe calls for one cup of flour, for example, I'll use the right amount of grams for a cup, instead of using a cup and weighing what fits in.

Achrya

I use my scale but I don't have any particular guidelines, or whatever. I usually eat 6-8 ounces of chicken at a time, 2-3 servings of tuna, whatever amount of veg looks good. I just weigh it and enter in whatever number I get.

So, long story short, I weigh for accuracy not to make sure I'm within the 'proper serving size'.

Chief_Rocka

Eating more than one serving makes you fat

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

I was gifted a pretty decent scale yesterday and today's the first day I decided to use it. I decided to make an egg white omelette with onion & mushroom, and weighed it out according to what a serving would be (I used HealthAliciousNess.com to kinda get an idea on nutritional values & what my personal goals are).

I only did two egg whites.. but 100 grams each of onion and mushrooms was way more than I was anticipating! I also realized I put more than the two tablespoons of my creamer in my coffee. I'm probably going to give up on this brand and go back to the soy creamer I was using last year.

So here's the question: do you weigh out your ingredients in a recipe? Do you have nutritional goals and just piece it together from what you have? Again, today's the first time I've used it, so I'm new to this whole thing. What's the best way to get the most out of weighing your food?

Yes. Weight all the ingredients. Cook food. Weigh out final product, divide into the number of servings you want-- that number is how much each portion should weigh.

I'm not sure I understand the second part-- do you mean how do I decide whether to use 4 oz of chicken or 8? If it's a recipe I just go with whatever it calls for-- I might tweak things a bit (usually recipes I get online or in cookbooks call for WAY more oil than they really need) to get more manageable calories or more protein. If it's not a recipe I start with one serving and adjust up or down depending on what works best for my calories and macros.

mom2kpr

Eating more than one serving makes you fat

Not necessarily. It all depends on your daily calorie goals. Many times you can eat more then one serving & stay within your goals.

Achrya

Eating more than one serving makes you fat

Is that right?

Ninkyou

I use my scale but I don't have any particular guidelines, or whatever. I usually eat 6-8 ounces of chicken at a time, 2-3 servings of tuna, whatever amount of veg looks good. I just weigh it and enter in whatever number I get.

So, long story short, I weigh for accuracy not to make sure I'm within the 'proper serving size'.

This. I weigh what I'm going to eat, regardless of nutrition. Really, the only macro I pay attention to anymore is Protein.

WendyTerry420

Since I bought a food scale, I started weighing out flour, simply because it's faster. But for most other things, I found that I was dead-on with the measuring cups anyway. So I typically do what is the quickest.