Do u find yourself guessing?

lthames0810

I know my attitude is heresy, but if what you are doing is getting the results you want, why change? Just know that if you stop losing weight, your estimates are probably way off and then you'll need to tighten up your logging.

Maybe I will one day come to eat my words, but trying to be super precise about your food intake when your calorie goal and exercise burns are rough estimates seems pointlessly obsessive to me. Please, somebody, correct me if I'm missing something.

ottermotorcycle

My campus is "currently working" on getting complete and accurate nutrition facts. I refuse to just avoid the places I can't get accurate information for because I live on campus and don't have a car so my choices are limited by campus dining as it is. When I get home I imagine I will be doing a LOT more of my own cooking (at which time I will invest in a food scale, finally) but until then it's just not possible. I choose the closest thing in the database and eyeball portions a lot.

I'm on a slight deficit in an attempted recomp though so it's not as essential I get my numbers exact. I just keep an eye on my body and if I have to adjust, I will. If you're getting results, you can log haphazardly. If you're NOT getting results, logging more accurately is the first place to start.

lavendy17

Lots of restaurant chains publish their nutritional data - makes it very easy.

You know, I always doubt that they stick to that, like what they post cannot be true and the calories listed are lower than in reality (except for highly standardized places like McDonald's which I don't eat).
For example, you can go to Chipotle and they have a break down of calories for everything but did you notice that each server gives you what they think is a serving of rice?

I find this really challenging.

lavendy17

FYI if you are eating packaged foods, and you have the app, you can just scan the bar code.
It is the easiest thing ever.

sharinganxphunk

I do it, but only very rarely. If I go out for a meal for example.
If you're still losing weight then I don't think it matters too much because you're obviously in control. However, if you find that your weight loss it stalling, maybe then would be the time to be a little stricter with your calorie counting. :flowerforyou:

bcattoes

I cook almost everything from scratch and very few of my ingredients have bar codes. I guess maybe that is the difference.

Same here, but for me I've found that being more precise and weighing has actually made the time go down and it really doesn't take any time since I do it as I cook. Weighing the ingredients and noting the weight is just a few extra seconds per ingredient. Then when there's a break I walk over to the computer and log. If there's something more elaborate, where I actually want servings, I might write everything down and then go create a recipe, but usually I don't even do that. Could be I'm just normally a pretty simple cook.

I'm not sure I understand "where I actually want servings". When would you not want servings? Servings in the recipe section was a whole other form of hades for me.

StaciMarie1974

Generally speaking, I don't guess. I like knowing my calorie information - and the full macro break down. So I go for accuracy. Not having access to the nutritional detail helps me avoid some temptations. (Like the cookies in the office kitchen right now.) When I eat out I have control over where I go, so I mostly go for places that provide nutritional information OR stick to simple meals. The simpler the food, the easier to estimate with decent accuracy.

StaciMarie1974

Useful tool for the kitchen, almost as useful as the food scale: A dry erase board. Nothing huge, I think the one we use is about 8x11. Good for taking notes as I go, which I can use later to build a recipe in MFP. Or for taking notes on what I put on my plate. For that to work, you need a general idea of what its all 'worth' of course.

albayin

I am still guessing the best way for my weight loss and fitness

defauIt

I guess foe most days as i eat out 5 days a week, but I have been in maitenance for over a year and have actually lost a few more pounds in that time. I still count calories in my head but I only log every once in awhile to double check my micro/macro breakdowns.

If you can do it with estimating, go for if. If you start gaining weight, stop estimating and start tracking religiously again.

snazzyjazzy21

I only guess when I'm eating out. I prepare or help prepare all the meals we eat at home so I can be as accurate as possible when I log.

eatspopcorn

Nope, no can do. I've done that in the past, and it always lead to me stopping completely and regaining.

I log it all on here, and use the recipe builder when I cook. Having said that....I do not stress over having to guess at something I don't know to be 100% accurate. I find the best match to my knowledge and move on. If I eat out at a restaurant, I go by their posted nutrition knowing that they're not going to make my burger by weighing/measuring the ingredients, and they don't weigh my serving of fries, but its better than nothing. When my husband cooks I do the best to enter in approximate amounts of the ingredients he used so I at least have an idea.

Life gets in the way sometimes, so we deal with it the best way we can. But don't start loosening things up so much that eventually you're guessing at everything, and then just logging in your head and end up not logging at all. That's my personal experience :drinker:

cwolfman13

Recipe for disaster?

wouldn't go that far, but calorie counting is largely about being as precise as possible...even then there is inherent error...you're just magnifying that error. chances are it probably won't work all that well for you.

I used the recipe builder as I cook in bulk from scratch most of the time and eat little in the way of packaged foods. When I ate out I did the best I could...but ultimately determined that I had the most success when I pretty much stopped eating out save for 2 or 3 times per month. Also, ultimately my macros and other nutritional information became important for me as I was largely focused on my general health rather than just weight loss.

lemurcat12

I'm not sure I understand "where I actually want servings". When would you not want servings? Servings in the recipe section was a whole other form of hades for me.

Like if you are making meat and simple sides you don't need servings. You just need to know what pieces or portions you will be eating or, if necessary, to weigh when cooked and go with those measures (for example, I like to roast bone-in chicken, so there's no option but to weigh the cooked meat). Servings seem only necessary if you are making a dish with lots of ingredients, and even there if you can divide it up reasonably evenly into 4 parts or some such you probably don't need to mess with creating a recipe, but just take 1/4 of everything (which is how I usually deal when making a pasta sauce or the like, although it's not perfectly precise, of course). But like I said, it could be that I tend to be a pretty simple cook most of the time. Agreed that futzing around with weighing a whole dish is a pain if that's necessary.

Francl27

For me being lazy is when I know I'm going to be over anyway, and I stop weighing packaged foods...

sodakat

And not entering what you eat, but just logging in calories in a general way?

I've realized that there are lots of ways to use MFP to help me lose weight, especially the Reports that can be generated from the "MY HOME" section.

If I were to add most of my calories using the "Quick Add" function instead of logging each food item, I would not be able to look at the last 30 days of my diary and break it down by macro, such as sodium or potassium or protein and match the info with the Weight Loss report.

Because I weigh daily and have started entering every loss, even a partial pound loss, I can see a pattern in how I lose weight. I can then note the date of the days prior to each loss and take a look at my diary components for those days, looking for any obvious patterns.

I know you don't need to track specific foods as long as you are in a deficit, but if you want to learn more about "How" and "When" you are losing, then these reports are very useful -- and without entering foods correctly, the reports are not very worthwhile.

Kathy

lavendy17

The simpler the food, the easier to estimate with decent accuracy.

OOOH great idea!