Weighing your food or not? Your take on it?

smn76237

If you are seeing the results you want, then do whatever you want to do.

If you are not seeing the results you want, then weighing your food even for a few days can be an easy way to assess what may or may not be going wrong. At the very least you'll know that you have accurate numbers to work with.

Yes!

I'm not sure why food scales are such a hot button issue around here or why people are so quick to poo poo them. I love mine so much. It takes away any guesswork, I have accurate data in my diary, and I feel like I can eat a bigger variety of things because I don't have to be afraid that I might be going over my calories.

geebusuk

Calories in vs calories out.

All that matters.

Weighing food is one very good way to help ensure you are keeping the calories in less than the calories out.

It really doesn't take long to do - I just keep the scales on the worksafe - they can be zeroed with stuff on too, so it's minimal effort to get a few numbers to work out exactly what I'm eating.
And yes, this includes stuff like pouring a bowl of cereal with milk.

What in years gone by would be a 'medium' bowl of cereal for me (of which I could have several) is around double the suggested serving size.

SoosannahK

I weigh almost all my food now. I was disheartened when I seen that a 2 TBSP serving of peanut butter was not actually 2 TBSP. I was probably eating 4x the serving size just going by the good ol TBSP. Also cereal is another eye opener when you go from measuring cup to scale. Needless to say I dont eat much of either unless it is to fill some snack calories when I am almost at my daily goal. Now the food gets weighed. Things I skimp on weighing are probably fruit and veggies though I do try to remember to weigh those before I eat half of them. I am getting better at that.

AllOutof_Bubblegum

The problem is that when people don't weigh their food, their true calorie intake is much different than what they are putting in their diary by hundreds of calories, and that makes a huge difference.

Pretty much this

rm33064

How are you supposed to know how much you're really eating if you don't weigh and measure? Does guessing really work for people?

Achrya

Are you losing without the scale? Well then good for you, do what you do.

Stalled, even though you think you're in a deficit? Use the sclae.

Easy

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Deena_Bean

Are you losing without the scale? Well then good for you, do what you do.

Stalled, even though you think you're in a deficit? Use the sclae.

Easy

I've always lost without a scale...now I'm stalled with about 15 pounds left to lose. Hence the question on this - I am going to buy one and see how it goes for a couple of weeks

rak173

I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you want to jump start the last bit of weight loss, buying a scale may be worth it. I have just started my journey and have not been weighing everything(I have been using cup measurements), but after this past week, I am going to start weighing more! Initially it helped me most with protein items. I hope it will help push my weight loss along as well.

Nedra19455

If you are seeing the results you want, then do whatever you want to do.

If you are not seeing the results you want, then weighing your food even for a few days can be an easy way to assess what may or may not be going wrong. At the very least you'll know that you have accurate numbers to work with.

This! I weigh some things, but not everything. Basically I weigh the things I know I can't estimate, or can only find guidelines given in volumes.

If/when I plateau or slow down to a disappointing rate of weight loss, the first thing I will do is to start weighing more carefully.

asciiqwerty

If you are seeing the results you want, then do whatever you want to do.

If you are not seeing the results you want, then weighing your food even for a few days can be an easy way to assess what may or may not be going wrong. At the very least you'll know that you have accurate numbers to work with.

what she said

i don't intend to do it forever, but for now, i'm weighing my food as a way to re-learn proper(healthy) portioning

especially at lower deficits, (my target is 275 per week) inacurrate loggin can wipe out the target deficit(study i blogged about sets this at over 200C/day for dietitians and over 400 for other adults, all of whom were targetting only accurate loggin rathert han a calorie goal) and the resulting weightloss. I assume that my logging has improved but i'm still probably out by about 300 or so over a day when I guess portions rather than weighing them


As i approach my goal, I am starting to guess my portions first, then measuring htem, to help me get better at estimating, but as others have saidwhen I stagnate, the first thing i change is how often i weigh food

Faye_Anderson

Weighing has become second nature to me, so much so that my husband automatically weighs food when he knows it is for me. It is something I will do forever just because I'm in the habit.

aschroeder2749

I would weigh your food if you are at a plateau or can't seem to lose weight with basic counting calories. Weighing is not for me. There's a body weight I could be if I hardly ever indulged, exercised like a madwoman, never drank alcohol, and weighed all my food. Sure, I'd love to be that weight. It's been a slow process, but I've decided, I'd rather be 10 lbs heavier than that number and just keep an eye on what I eat and try to maintain a fairly healthy lifestyle. I am not interested in weighing things gram by gram. If I desperately needed to lose that extra 10 I was referring to, then I would change tactics and start doing so. Depends on how bad you want it, I guess.

weird_me2

I weigh 98% of what I eat...even fast food (cause I eat at home most of the time) and I have yet to hit a stall or plateau.

My scale sits on my cupboard beside my stove and it's 2nd nature now....it takes all of 2mins a meal...

will I weigh my food for life...who knows but that thought doesn't bother me...it's 6mins a day...

I am still ticked at how little 75gram of boiled potatoes are but when I eat them I realize it's enough...

weighing food is not a bad thing just another tool like MFP and you don't have issues with the site.

True. 6 minutes. I'm shopping for a scale, but I wanted to see how everyone feels about it. I eat "out" several times a week (always "healthy" foods for the most part), but I don't have access to a scale when I'm about to eat a salmon filet. I guess it doesn't hurt to use it if I have it, though. We'll see how it goes.

Your potato comment made me giggle - mostly because I'm about 100% positive I'll have the same reaction. I do have a love affair with potatoes! Oh and cheese scares me and will probably reduce me to a weeping heap on the kitchen floor.

I think weighing my food when I'm at home helps me be a much better judge of portion sizes when I'm at a restaurant. Regularly measuring everything at home means I can pretty accurately judge 2 T of sour cream, 1 oz of shredded cheese, cooked meat weights, etc.

Also, the way I see it is that if I weigh and log everything as accurately as possible (including using the correct food entry), then I can use my losses over time to figure out my TDEE. The more accurate my logging, the more accurate my calculations can be.

whitebalance

It's SO EASY to weigh foods with a digital scale. Add plate, push tare button, add food, push tare button, repeat. I'm already putting the food on the plate; how hard is it to also push a button?

After months and months of using a digital scale, I've become pretty good at grabbing an ounce serving of pretzels, slicing a given amount of hard cheese, eyeballing a teaspoon of butter, and so on. But the scale is so easy to use, I might as well just do it for everything, so I usually do just to check myself. For new foods, especially calorie-dense ones, you bet I'm weighing it. How else would I know what I'm eating? For folks who have a 500-calorie deficit in their goals, this may not be such a big deal. For me in maintenance, anything over is a gain.

The weighing thing does have limits. I don't take my scale to my mom's house when I visit her and she makes dinner. I certainly don't take my scale to restaurants (and I eat restaurant food pretty much every day) or parties (ooooh, yummy-looking hors-d'oeuvres, don't mind if I do, hold on while I weigh this! uh, no). BUT since I do use my scale for most everything at home, I'm much better at estimating portions and calories on the fly in those situations.

TheStephil

Weighing is so much easier than using measuring cups in my opinion. Saves on dishes too. It's just a habit of mine now. I'd probably bring my scale with me when eating out if I wasn't afraid of damaging my scale during the transportation. I may buy a smaller portable scale just for that purpose.

I weigh out my fast food too unless we eat at the fast food place which happens maybe once out of 20 times.

cwolfman13

It depends on how good you are at estimating serving sizes and portions...I didn't have a clue what 4 oz of chicken breast looked like when I started out...and other things that would be measured in cup...well, depending on how I slice and/or dice something I can fit a lot of food in a cup...so what is a cup of chicken breast anyway? Don't get me started on calorie dense foods like almonds and avocados and nut butters, etc...

I was reluctant at first, but i had stalled in losing weight so gave it a whirl...turns out I was underestimating my intake by a good 300 - 600 calories per day depending...at only a 500 calorie deficit, that pretty much wiped it out.

I don't use the scale as much anymore...it was a very useful tool to help me learn better portion control though. I still use it for things like spaghetti...'cuz what is a cup of spaghetti? Also, for nuts and such because in my head, a serving is still a handful...but a handful for me is more like a serving and a half to two servings.

turtlefan137

I have a plain old plastic nondigital scale. I'm sure it's off a little bit but at the same time, it does a pretty good job of doing what I needed to. I use it constantly and it helps me establish things that don't have an obvious serving size that I can ascertain visually, such as a piece of brie. I also use measuring cups for things that I know I can flatten out on top. You'd be surprised how much mayo ends up in a teaspoon when you are accidentally using heaping.

Gramps251

I don't stress if something doesn't get weighed but the scale has taught me a lot about portion size and calorie density. My take on it is, it's a good tool but not essential.

lockedcj7

I also lost weight without weighing food and logging religiously... and then it stopped. I've been at the same plateau for years. I recently started playing around with logging and I realized that I was eating a lot more calories than I thought. I wasn't eating enough to gain but I also wasn't losing any more either.

Beginning May 1st, I've started logging absolutely everything. I cook at home a lot and it's very hard to accurately count those calories if you don't weigh your food. Lots of things are listed in the data base by weight and can't really be measured. Guess what? It's only been five days and I can already see the difference on the scale.

Kchloee

I use to weigh every. single. thing. I weight a few things now...now as much as I use to. I can eye certain things pretty well.

When I weight meats to freeze, I wrap them (chicken breasts for example) individually and write the weight on it, saves me time on a day-to-day basis. I also measure grains, buts and oils and butters, those I have to be accurate with. It may look like a cup of rice or 1/4 cup of almonds, but it's usually not. lol.