Calorie Counting 101

ShanitaMarie85

When I cook my cabbage it shrinks and I don't have the same amount after I cook it. (Of course) So when I weigh it and divide up the servings for example 28oz raw 7 servings each servings 4oz. Now when I cook it there is no way I'm getting 7 serving bc the cabbage now weighs 18.5oz cooked. So my question is should i divide my servings up after I cook? With meat I always did it before I cook it.

ShanitaMarie85

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ShanitaMarie85

When I cook my cabbage it shrinks and I don't have the same amount after I cook it. (Of course) So when I weigh it and divide up the servings for example 28oz raw 7 servings each servings 4oz. Now when I cook it there is no way I'm getting 7 serving bc the cabbage now weighs 18.5oz cooked. So my question is should i divide my servings up after I cook? With meat I always did it before I cook it

ShanitaMarie85

W

vismal

shanitame wrote: »

When I cook my cabbage it shrinks and I don't have the same amount after I cook it. (Of course) So when I weigh it and divide up the servings for example 28oz raw 7 servings each servings 4oz. Now when I cook it there is no way I'm getting 7 serving bc the cabbage now weighs 18.5oz cooked. So my question is should i divide my servings up after I cook? With meat I always did it before I cook it

Weigh it all raw, weigh it all cooked. Divide those numbers. Weigh the cooked portion you are going to eat, then multiply it be the number you got dividing the total raw and total cooked. This works for any cooked food.

marciebrian

Fantastic post! thank you

SueTN2

Thanks for the great info..

LiquidSparkle86

Great info!

lorisavage13

vismal wrote: »

Weigh it all raw, weigh it all cooked. Divide those numbers. Weigh the cooked portion you are going to eat, then multiply it be the number you got dividing the total raw and total cooked. This works for any cooked food.

Can you please be a little more specific about this. Do you mean divide the raw weight into the cooked weight or the other way around.
Thanks so much!

vismal

lorisavage13 wrote: »

vismal wrote: »

Weigh it all raw, weigh it all cooked. Divide those numbers. Weigh the cooked portion you are going to eat, then multiply it be the number you got dividing the total raw and total cooked. This works for any cooked food.

Can you please be a little more specific about this. Do you mean divide the raw weight into the cooked weight or the other way around.
Thanks so much!

Yes, you take the total raw weight and divide it by the total cooked weight. Whatever that number is, you multiply it by the cooked portion you will consume. Suppose you make a steak. It is 300 grams raw, and 250 grams cooked. You then eat 150 grams of cooked steak. To figure out how much raw steak you ate you would divide 300 by 250 which is 1.2 and multiply that by 150. You would end up eating the equivalent of 180 grams of raw steak. That is what you add to MFP.

mwebster01

tracyannk28 wrote: »

vismal wrote: »

Calorie Counting 101

Dining out: If you want to be 100% accurate you can bring a scale to a restaurant. [

I couldn't even imagine how embarrassing it would be for my friends and family if I started lugging my food scale with me into restaurants. The day I start doing this is the day I realize that this healthy eating plan gone too far.

I agree with that.

whomycat

I'm 35, and amazed at how much I don't know about how to eat. Thank you for this post!

jahmanrv

Okay, so gave in a bought a scale to weigh. I pretty much was accurate with the hand weighing, but it is better to just put in a scale.

chanell84

All the research I've done says that it doesn't matter what and when I eat as long as I'm in my calorie deficit I will lose weight no matter what. However I see so many ppl on here very concerned about their macros and making sure they aren't eating too many carbs. Part of me wants to stop worrying about my macros and just worry about my calories but I've always been taught not to eat too many carbs and never eat after 7:00 pm. Is this something I should just let go of or should I be watching my macros and not be eating a snack closer to bed.

MiltonAFC

chanell84 wrote: »

All the research I've done says that it doesn't matter what and when I eat as long as I'm in my calorie deficit I will lose weight no matter what. However I see so many ppl on here very concerned about their macros and making sure they aren't eating too many carbs. Part of me wants to stop worrying about my macros and just worry about my calories but I've always been taught not to eat too many carbs and never eat after 7:00 pm. Is this something I should just let go of or should I be watching my macros and not be eating a snack closer to bed.

If you hit your macros, you will hit your calories.

You can eat whenever you want, meal timing is irrelevant. Your body isn't going to store food as fat if you eat at 7:01pm.

Carbs are not the enemy. Excess of calories is the problem.

salenamartine

I just started calorie counting 5 days ago and have lost 4 lbs. it's hard to cut back but it's very effective! That's what I mainly use this app for. Calorie counting definitely helps me make better decisions during the day. Thanks for the advice!

vismal

chanell84 wrote: »

All the research I've done says that it doesn't matter what and when I eat as long as I'm in my calorie deficit I will lose weight no matter what. However I see so many ppl on here very concerned about their macros and making sure they aren't eating too many carbs. Part of me wants to stop worrying about my macros and just worry about my calories but I've always been taught not to eat too many carbs and never eat after 7:00 pm. Is this something I should just let go of or should I be watching my macros and not be eating a snack closer to bed.

Calories are king when it comes to weight loss. Macros are king when it comes to fat loss. I'll explain. Eat in a calorie deficit and you will lose weight. Some of it will be fat, some will be lean tissue, some will be other stuff. If you get in adequate protein and fats, you can optimize how much of the weight lost is fat vs lean mass. I usually recommend people initially concentrate on just keeping a calorie deficit and getting in a decent amount of protein. For most people's goals, that's enough. If you have more extreme physique goals, you should try and hit calories as well as protein and fat minimums every day. Time is of very little importance when compared to your total intake for the day. There is no scientific reason to stop eating any types of food after any arbitrary time. Unless you plan on during lots of endurance competitions or training, you really don't need to worry about timing at all.

juliet3455

Vismal - good post.
As a companion to this I would suggest that people read the post " Logging Accurately " .
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
and visit this link as it has quite a few good posts that supports the Good Information in this post.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p1

I was using MFP for a good 6 months before I found these posts so it is a bit of a personal mission of mine to pass them on to other people who are just starting.

My standard suggestion/tip is to do some reading and buy a kitchen scale!!!
Re-train/calibrate your mind as to what a portion size is..
You will be surprised how small some portions look when you start to weigh them out. The average cereal bowl I have in my kitchen will hold 2-6 portions.

The Food Database

@ arditarose and @ blankiefinder‌ Nailed it when it comes to Logging accurately and selecting food using the search feature.

arditarose wrote: »

Weigh your eggs and find the appropriate entry. Two eggs at 50 grams is typically 140 calories. If you cooked them with olive oil, add that as well.

Don't log 2 eggs as it is a subjective number, where 50 gm. is very concise.

blankiefinder wrote: »

if I haven't found an entry that lists the grams, I keep looking for a different entry. This [ Enter Food ] item is already listed a bunch of times. Better to edit and correct one that is already there than add to the database mess that exists now.

When creating or editing a Food item from the existing database my Personal Bias is to Edit an existing Entry and enter the nutritional values based on grams ( 100 gm ) as it makes the portion size math easy. Especially when you use a scale and WEIGH EVERYTHING.

Rather than creating a completely new entry for a food item and adding to the Disaster/Mess in the Food Database I continue looking through the items until I find one with Grams in it and verify the data against the USDA website.
HINT if 2000 people have confirmed the nutritional value of an item it's a good choice, if 4 people have its questionable.

rabbitjb wrote: »

There are always a range of choices and one inevitably has by weight

If I can't find an existing entry with grams I pick one that has Nutritional Values close to the ones based on Manufacture Label - cross referenced to un-biased nutritional information from the USDA web site at and then edit it by adding a 100 gram reference and confirm the nutritional values based on Manufacture Label again cross referenced to USDA database ( MFP seems to automatically add a 1 gm value in the database). My personal Bias is to use grams ( 100 gm) as it makes the math easy especially when you use a scale.

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search

Some of these links will show up in the other Groups and discussions.

Visit the Eat-Train-Progress group and read the pinned topics. If you click on the little STAR you can bookmark the topic for future reference.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/10118-eat-train-progress

Read the information at these MFP post. They have links to multiple very good reads.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1069278/acronyms-and-terms-for-new-mfp-members-v-6/p1

Visit these links about building Habits.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/ihad/view/the-power-of-habit-part-4-making-good-habits-stick-1-000-days-on-mfp-and-counting-698617

Its not practical or socially acceptable to carry a scale into restaurants-friends-family homes so that is where we have to fall back on our memory and estimates of what the portions sizes are. Do be careful about eyeballing as many people have posted how surprised at how small some portions are when they started to use a scale and weigh them out. I know I was. We can never be 100% accurate but the rewards of weight loss are worth the effort.

Keep coming back to this post ( bookmark it ) as I am sure Vismal and others will have lots of little pieces of information that will help you.

chanell84

So what your saying Vismal is I really should concentrate on not eating too many carbs? I have my macros set to 40 carbs 30 fat and 30 protein. I'm usually over on carbs and protein. I'm not over in my actual numbers just the pie chart says I'm over.

vismal

chanell84 wrote: »

So what your saying Vismal is I really should concentrate on not eating too many carbs? I have my macros set to 40 carbs 30 fat and 30 protein. I'm usually over on carbs and protein. I'm not over in my actual numbers just the pie chart says I'm over.

No, that's not at all what I said. You can eat carbs. I eat 450 a day at the moment. What I said was that it completely depends on your goals. If you are purely interested in weight loss for the sake of weight loss, then calories are all that matters. If you want to do a little more to ensure that you preserve lean mass (which will make your physique more aesthetic when you have lost the weight), then you should try and meet protein goals, and do some weight lifting. If you have more extreme goals (want to run a marathon, want to have a 6 pack, want to climb Mount Everest) then you will have to pay very close attention to your breakdown of carbs, fats, and protein. How those should breakdown will depend on what your goal is, and how you personally respond to certain macro nutrients. As an example, many people doing endurance events need a lot of carbs to fuel training. Many folks who want to get extremely lean need to reduce carbs as time goes on and they get leaner and leaner. Protein is a little less important for the marathon runner than the bodybuilder. There are a million subtleties that go in to training and eating for an extreme goal. Most people with basic goals needn't worry about all that and just really need to eat in a deficit, and get in adequate protein.

chanell84

Ok thank you I was confused. I have no extreme goals I just want to lose another 60 lbs. I'm currently down 22. I have never been much of an athlete so my goals are mainly to lose the weight and get healthy. I want to have the energy to keep up with my kids. I have no intentions or desire of becoming a body builder or climbing Mount Everest. My goals are much smaller like go for a bike ride with my boys and not be winded lol.

timeisfiction

vismal wrote: »

it doesn't take self control and movtivation to weigh in grams it takes a kitchen scale on the kitchen counter and habit...

batteries, you also need batteries.

Hahaha cute. So true! Batteries required.

megbert581

Very helpful! Thank you for your post (:

danielleflanagan43yahoocom928

HOw much have I Lost

greaseswabber

If I am unsure about the portion size of a restaurant meal I take home an easy to separate fraction (1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 ) and weigh it at home. Then I apply that to the amount I ate at the restaurant. I don't have to take a scale and I don't have to estimate as much.

I usually bring home leftovers and need to weigh them anyway.

kindrabbit

I love this post. Counting calories suits the obsessive in me. My scale measures weight and liquids so I can measure my 40g of oats, zero the scale, then add 150ml of milk, zero again and add 150ml of water. Into the microwave then back on the scale to add my 5g of agave nectar. It's so easy! Most of my meals are prepped in the same way, in a bowl on the scale. Every ingredient is weighed and logged, then just zero the scale and add the next ingredient.

For calories I wear a heart rate monitor. I can then manually enter the exercise and calorie after every workout. My fitbit is connected to mfp too so my walking is logged via that but all cardio and weight sessions are measured with the hrm.

katrinafaymurphy

I'm doing the my fitness pal. Will be my 3rd wk on Monday, I have lost 4lb, I was hoping for more, but 2lb a wk is good isn't it? I am swimming 3x a wk to, my calorie goal is 1200 but always go under once I've added my excercise on. Am I on the right track

kindrabbit

katrinafaymurphy wrote: »

I'm doing the my fitness pal. Will be my 3rd wk on Monday, I have lost 4lb, I was hoping for more, but 2lb a wk is good isn't it? I am swimming 3x a wk to, my calorie goal is 1200 but always go under once I've added my excercise on. Am I on the right track

yes! you are on the right track. The general advice is to aim for 1lb a week so to loose 2 a week is excellent. Keep on keeping on! they do say that the losses in the first few weeks are usually faster than subsequent weeks so you can expect it to slow down but as long as you are loosing or maintaining and you are continuing to eat at a deficit you are good to go

josephmontano9

Thank you so much I was told by my baseball coach I have to go from 20% to 16% so I know this could help me.

shera114

Great reminders!