Weighing and measuring food

Do you measure and log everything you eat?

If yes --

How do you find the time, or the will? Does it not drive you crazy?

At what point do you plan to stop, or is your plan to measure everything for the rest of your life?

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

Replies

stealthq

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

NO DIETS!!! Ingredients? what? who cares. Eat what you want as long as it fits your calories and macros. I mean that is unless you have a medical issue and cannot do that.

Everyone has a diet. I was not looking for a diet name, more of a description. Maybe a sample of a typical meal or menu.

I use a lot of ingredients in almost everything I make. Measuring and logging every little thing seems like a lot of trouble. Overwhelming, even.

I am just trying to get an idea of how others manage it, and of those that do, if their diet significantly differs from mine.

No not everyone has a diet. Some just eat less than what they did before. Not everyone weighs and measures everything. It may not work for everyone. It is just accuracy. Do what is right for you. But you should know that a lot of package items, once weighed, are a lot different in calories then the package states.

You can only do what works for you, not what others are doing. If you can lose weight with just estimates than keep on keeping on. If you cannot then you would just have to buck up and use the scale.

*sigh*

Yes, everyone does have a diet.

She means diet as in #1 under noun. Just describe the kinds of dishes you habitually eat.

di·et
noun

1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
synonyms: selection of food, food, foodstuffs; More
informalgrub, nosh
"health problems related to your diet"
a regular occupation or series of activities in which one participates.
"a healthy diet of classical music"
2. a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.
"I'm going on a diet"
(of food or drink) with reduced fat or sugar content.
modifier noun: diet
"diet soft drinks"

verb

1. restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.
"it's difficult to diet"
synonyms: be on a diet, eat sparingly;

Need2Exerc1se

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

NO DIETS!!! Ingredients? what? who cares. Eat what you want as long as it fits your calories and macros. I mean that is unless you have a medical issue and cannot do that.

Everyone has a diet. I was not looking for a diet name, more of a description. Maybe a sample of a typical meal or menu.

I use a lot of ingredients in almost everything I make. Measuring and logging every little thing seems like a lot of trouble. Overwhelming, even.

I am just trying to get an idea of how others manage it, and of those that do, if their diet significantly differs from mine.

No not everyone has a diet. Some just eat less than what they did before. Not everyone weighs and measures everything. It may not work for everyone. It is just accuracy. Do what is right for you. But you should know that a lot of package items, once weighed, are a lot different in calories then the package states.

You can only do what works for you, not what others are doing. If you can lose weight with just estimates than keep on keeping on. If you cannot then you would just have to buck up and use the scale.

*sigh*

Yes, everyone does have a diet.

She means diet as in #1 under noun. Just describe the kinds of dishes you habitually eat.

di·et
noun

1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
synonyms: selection of food, food, foodstuffs; More
informalgrub, nosh
"health problems related to your diet"
a regular occupation or series of activities in which one participates.
"a healthy diet of classical music"
2. a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.
"I'm going on a diet"
(of food or drink) with reduced fat or sugar content.
modifier noun: diet
"diet soft drinks"

verb

1. restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.
"it's difficult to diet"
synonyms: be on a diet, eat sparingly;

Oh, so "diet" is yet another MFP trigger word. My goodness there are a lot of them aren't there? :laugh:

I suppose not having a diet would be a fast way to lose weight, until you starve to death, that is.

angelamb1970

Yep. Weigh all solids (minus waste like peels, pits, bones) measure all liquids. I cook from scratch daily, many many many ingredients... sometimes more than 15 in a single dish. It doesn't really take all that much time and I just create "recipes" here and re-use when I make it again. After it's prepared and cooked, I then weigh the whole container (minus container weight) calculate all calories in the dish and divide by 100 grams so it's easy to figure out serving sizes. If I add something different than listed the next time I make it, it goes as a separate entry.

When we eat out (rare) I over-guestimate based on ingredients (and create a recipe here). If it's a take-out order and to be eaten at home... I weigh it. I have been known to dismantle a subway sandwich, or a Gyro to get a base idea. You'd be surprised the differences of what's advertised compared to what you get! as much or little as 300 calories difference at times!!

Funny thing happens... I can now cut a perfect 20g cheese slice, an can eyeball a perfect 136g apple. So, in a long long long time when I'm at maintenance, I'm pretty sure I won't need to rely on the scale as much. It was under-estimating my over-portioned meals that got me extremely obese in the first place, it's going to take some patience and discipline to teach myself the other way of living. Good luck to you on your journey!

stealthq

OP, I do weigh and measure everything unless out at a restaurant or at someone's house. I don't find it tedious. I do often eat prepackaged stuff, and just log that.

I also cook frequently, and log all ingredients as I prep them. A typical meal for me might have only a couple of ingredients (glazed grilled chicken breast with steamed broccoli), or it might have > 10 (chilis, stews, curries, just about anything I bake). But, I also tend to eat the same thing over and over because I live by myself and one meal is usually at least 3 servings of leftovers. So, when I cook, I create a recipe in the database and use that. If I deviate from it, I'll add in any extras in my diary. I tend to cook one totally new recipe every month or so, so it isn't really that big of a deal to create a recipe every time. Plus, it's usually something online, and the recipe builder automates some of the process for a web recipe.

NikonPal

I love tracking what I eat and many times add items to my phone app while preparing a meal. It takes seconds ounce you build up your database. Most meals I prepare can be done in under 5 minutes.

There are times when I can’t log everything immediately. At those times, I will snap a phone photo and log when I get a chance. That way I don’t forget something.

It’s amazing after a few months of counting & weighing how you can come pretty close on estimating calories. If dining out, I always check menus / nutrition on-line of any restaurants that provide the information. Even if they don’t have nutrition listed, I review the menu and look up calories ahead of time, just to have an idea of good choices. Dressings are a killer and I carry a tiny container of balsamic vinegar, if I know all their dressings are pre-mixed.

Good luck. I think you will eventually find it easier than you think.

onefortyone

How do you find the time, or the will? Does it not drive you crazy?

At what point do you plan to stop, or is your plan to measure everything for the rest of your life?

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

1. Time isn't an issue for me. I made myself obese, I can spend a few minutes here and there to correct that. I never had to find the willpower to do it, I just had to learn how.

2. I may never stop while making dinner, but I am hoping/planning to train myself to 'eyeball it' while in maintenance. I can already scoop out almost exactly 16g of peanut butter every time! And I am awesome at cutting cheese into perfecly 1oz chunks.

3. I eat what I'd call a 'normal' diet, of home-made family foods. Roast meats and potatoes, stews, pastas, tacos, pizzas, curries, and stir fries are our main dishes. We use plenty of ingredients without a label. The USDA database has serving sizes and calorie information for most meats and vegetables which we go by when planning recipes (planning may be the most important step, cooking comes in 2nd or 3rd). Our meals aren't complex masterpieces, usually based around 4-6 ingredients (excl. spices), so we just log each time, rarely use the recipe creator.

But I have sped up my logging time immensely by manually reducing my calorie 'allowance' by 100, and letting myself throw in any amount of veggies I feel like at supper (excl. the starchier ones) - they're so low in calories that would take a lot for me to eat enough to add up to a surplus. I like how Weight Watchers doesn't 'count' veggies, but I know that it's easy to go overboard on corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. So I do weigh those. It might help you stay sane too

SezxyStef

My diary is open if you wanna have a look at how I eat. I follow IIFYM. I'm a foodie who loves to cook and prepare meals from scratch but I also eat fast food regularly.

Thanks, I will check out your diary. What is IIFYM? I saw it on another thread and gather that it is some sort of diet that I'm not familiar with. I asked then, but no one answered.

ditto here I follow IIFYM as well and my diary is open...and I love to cook and prepare lots of meals from scratch and cook all the time.

I eat prepackaged and fast food as well...you will notice a chocolate bar every night...

Anything with the servings in brackets is because it's in my recipes...each one logged...with individual ingrediants...

LessHeavyVeggie

Do you measure and log everything you eat?
- yes, where possible. I log everything and weigh everything I make at home, obviously that isn't possible if I eat out, but that's not very often for me, so I weigh and log everything 99% of the time.

How do you find the time, or the will? Does it not drive you crazy?
- I thought it would be such a pain at first, but I don't really even notice it any more. I have my scales in my kitchen and MFP on my phone, so as I add things to my plate or prepare ingredients I just pop the weight onto the app. It doesn't drive me crazy because it's working. I'm in control of my weight loss and know that logging is how I've gotten results and will continue to get results.

At what point do you plan to stop, or is your plan to measure everything for the rest of your life?
- I've still got a lot to lose so this is something I won't have to deal with for a while, but no, I don't plan to log for the rest of my life. I'm getting an education about portion sizing through using MFP and logging everything and my eating habits have already changed. I plan to log until my goal, continue logging until I find my maintenance level, and then taper off - I'll see how it goes when I get there I guess.

What type of diet do you eat?
- I'm Vegetarian (not for weightloss - I've been one for years). I'm not following any kind of diet 'plan' I just eat what I want in amounts that fit into my calorie goal - that's what's made this sustainable.

How many ingredients in the average meal?
- it's varies. One night I might have half a pizza from a packet and some bits of salad, another I might make a dish with a lot of different ingredients. If I'm making something from a recipe logging is so easy because I'm weighing out the ingredients to follow the recipe anyway (I'm not in US so I don't use recipes with cups etc). Either way I don't think it makes much of a difference with logging - if you spend 10mins chopping and preparing things, what's an extra minute to weigh them? I don't bother logging things like spices because they don't affect anything anyway (in my opinion at least)

How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?
- a lot. I eat of lot of veg and home-grown produce. It's all in the database so I don't think it's any different to log than packaged things.

MelodyandBarbells

IIFYM = If It Fits Your Macros

People who use this will figure out a percentage or grammage of protein, carbs and fat and calories they wish to consume per day and do their best to adhere. Sometimes the protein may be a minimum as against a bull's eye target, etc. If you do a search there'll be lots of reading material on MFP I'm sure and maybe even a group or two.

I do not weigh items I feel to have predetermined serving sized such as bacon (slice), egg (1 egg), slice of bread, cheese, and a few others I can't think of right this second. Like many said I do not use my scale at a restaurant. I've also been getting into the salad bar at work and I do not weigh that and have to estimate the calories. I do not weigh freely pouring liquids such as oil and milk - I use measuring cups and spoons for those. Also if I'm adding one onion to two bags of beans that'll be cooked with oil, I may not weigh the onion but rather accept the "bad" entries such as "small" or "medium" onion, as its contribution to the total calorie count would be more or less infinitesimal.

Weighing while cooking. I use the phone app (do you use it?) and MFP's recipe function. Like many said you can have multiple ingredients in one container and weigh them all at once by hitting Tare after adding each ingredient. If I'm scooping some out of a wide mouth container I will often Tare the whole container and scoop out some, then the negative reading is how much I've taken. I also usually allow the scale to timeout rather than turn it off. This little change by itself has made the process that much more bearable.

Oh one thing I forgot I could do was change the units on the scale. I used to do math instead lol. I don't put my scale away but rather have it sitting on the counter top. Almost hard to not weigh items, and it makes following recipes simpler. Half a six oz bag of Spinach?! Okay!!

sympha01

I weigh everything. I make pretty involved meals, too. It doesn't take a long time at all. It DOES take a little organization, though. It might seem like a PITA if you're a disorganized mess in the kitchen. But frankly if you're preparing meals with a lot of ingredients, if you're any good at it at all you've learned the value of pre-planning all your prep work. And you measure and jot down notes as you prep.

My dinner tonight:
Clean and prep the mushrooms. Takes 2 minutes. Weigh and note: < 10 seconds.
Trim and prep the zucchini. Takes 30 seconds. Weigh and note: < 10 seconds.
Clean and prep the peppers. Takes 1 minute. Weigh and note: < 10 seconds.
Peel, clean and prep the onions. Takes 3 minutes. Weigh and note: < 10 seconds.
Clean and prep the eggplant. Takes 30 seconds. Weigh and note: < 10 seconds.
De-stem the spinach: Takes 4 minutes (I really freakin' hate stems). Weigh and note: <10 seconds

Put vegetables in bowl, put bowl on scale, tare. Add oil. Note: takes < 10 seconds.

So the veggie prep for my dinner took 6 minutes if you don't count the perhaps overly complicated route I take with the spinach; 10 minutes if you do count it. Time I would have spent weighing or not.

Weighing and noting everything down took maybe as much as about 1 minute of my life. BFD.

Meat: I trim, weigh, wrap, and label meat portions (like chicken breasts or pork chops or steaks) the minute I get home from the grocery store. So everything is pre-weighed and ready to go when I'm cooking. The weighing part of that is again, only seconds, but for individual meals it's a non-issue.

I don't see how people say weighing is difficult. I'd encourage you to ask yourself seriously why you're mentally making such a federal case out of it, because realistically it's simply not a big deal at all.

Is there any chance that part of you really just desperately wants to avoid being truly honest with yourself about the actual volume of what you're eating, and possibly have to take responsibility for cutting back?

chrisdavey

yep, exact for salads as they are all basically close to zero cals anyway.

Takes SFA time.

I am much more relaxed about it during non prep times. Still pretty accurate though as I like to analyse data

cmpnaz

I weigh most things during prep... I use Sunday as a primary prep day and cook lunches and a couple dinners for beginning of the week,... High protein snacks like sunflower seeds and almonds I use the same containers for easy on the go and marked them for the portions the first time so it is easy to fill up after... I used to weigh my greens and veggies but do not anymore I found that running in my deficit that even if I am off by double( which does not happen ) the calories are not going to amount to enough to make a big impact... Dressings , butter, Marinades and additional condiments all get measured ( these are the calories that can add up and often get overlooked) High sugar foods and fruits are a must for weighing for me as well.

lemurcat12

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

No special type, not sure what you mean by this. Ingredients vary a lot--much of the time I cook quickly after working late, so I do a basic meat, veggie (or veggies), and starch, and I don't log herbs and spices. For breakfast I do a vegebtable omelet, fruit, some sort of additional protein (also simple to log and always about the same calories). But sometimes I have time to do fussier meals and I like to on occasion, since I enjoy cooking. I have a variety of cookbooks from which I get ideas (usually I don't do recipes) from a wide range of cuisines.

I'm trying to find out if my diet is very different than that of others who measure everything, because it seems so time consuming and cumbersome to me. Most of my meals are prepared from scratch and many contain a lot of ingredients.

I don't cook from recipes so I may add ingredients at any time in the cooking process based on taste - Oh, it's needs a little more onion - now I need to weigh more onion. That type of thing.

Mine are prepared from scratch, but the average daily meal does not contain a lot of ingredients. Like this evening I just had steak, corn, radicchio, and melon.

Need2Exerc1se

I don't see how people say weighing is difficult. I'd encourage you to ask yourself seriously why you're mentally making such a federal case out of it, because realistically it's simply not a big deal at all.

Is there any chance that part of you really just desperately wants to avoid being truly honest with yourself about the actual volume of what you're eating, and possibly have to take responsibility for cutting back?

To the first paragraph above: I would imagine people say this because it's true. Not everyone likes what you like, cooks like you cook, or thinks what you think is a big deal is a big deal. People are different. I don't find it difficult, I find it time consuming and frustrating.

To the second paragraph: No. To be honest, I don't even know what you mean with these questions. I know what I eat. I don't sneak food and pretend I didn't. I have already cut back on what I eat and I am losing weight, so not sure what you mean by take resonsibility for it. Who else would or could take that responsibility?

But your post does at least tell me that I'm not the only that finds measuring cumbersome. I guess it just comes down to preference and lifestyle.

PaytraB

I use a lot of ingredients in almost everything I make. Measuring and logging every little thing seems like a lot of trouble. Overwhelming, even.

Have you logged your recipes under the "recipes" tab? I do this for the recipes that use a lot of ingredients. Only have to do it once, then use it again when you cook it again.

MelodyandBarbells

What type of diet do you eat? How many ingredients in the average meal? How many raw ingredients that do not contain a label?

No special type, not sure what you mean by this. Ingredients vary a lot--much of the time I cook quickly after working late, so I do a basic meat, veggie (or veggies), and starch, and I don't log herbs and spices. For breakfast I do a vegetable omelet, fruit, some sort of additional protein (also simple to log and always about the same calories). But sometimes I have time to do fussier meals and I like to on occasion, since I enjoy cooking. I have a variety of cookbooks from which I get ideas (usually I don't do recipes) from a wide range of cuisines.

I'm trying to find out if my diet is very different than that of others who measure everything, because it seems so time consuming and cumbersome to me. Most of my meals are prepared from scratch and many contain a lot of ingredients.

I don't cook from recipes so I may add ingredients at any time in the cooking process based on taste - Oh, it's needs a little more onion - now I need to weigh more onion. That type of thing.

See now your little extra onion probably wouldn't be but eight calories in a batch that would have like six servings or something. At some point you come to realize not every ingredient is created equal. You measure the oil carefully, but with the onion you maintain your sanity and maybe let that one go, or just bump your initial measured quantity a bit

Can you give an idea of a meal you might try to log, your process and the general driving you nuts part?

Here's an example for cooking a beans (black eye peas) recipe I do. Weigh the beans. Usually I just want it to be around 8 oz then I don't have to modify the quantity in my existing recipe. Throw in tomatoes bell peppers and onions into the blender. Sometimes I weigh these sometimes I don't. When it comes time add some palm oil, two table spoons of this is measured carefully because each tablespoon is 130 calories. Rarely if ever do I modify the recipe due to using the same quantities for the most part. I also weigh the yield when all is said and done , but I haven't always done this and have been successful either way

Another example is chicken marinated in a honey mustard mix. I try to keep the honey and Dijon mustard to the same weights each time. Throw the cup on the scale; start adding ingredients and Tare the scale after each. Cut up the chicken, weigh it, throw it in the bake dish and then cover with marinade. Mostly I'm updating the weight of the chicken but the other items are mostly left alone. This helps me get consistent taste too because sometimes when I'm heavy handed on some ingredients it just doesn't taste right.

Need2Exerc1se

Examples: Let's say I'm making chili.
Ground venison - this is a pretty easy one since we freeze it in 1.5 lb packages. Beans, again not too hard since they are in pint jars.

Now, the rest of the ingredients are all pretty low calorie - salsa, tomato sauce, onion, peppers, celery - and any one of them could be skipped with little impact. But if I skip them ALL, then what is the point? And if I have to weigh each of them, that just ruins the fun of cooking for me.

Another - roast chicken. Sounds easy, but do you weigh it, then eat, then weigh again to see what you actually ate? So, I'm taking my dinner refuse and weighing it? And for marinades - do you weigh the marinade before adding meat, then weigh it again after the meat is removed to see how much was absorbed by or coated the meat?

Homemade pickles are also a problem.

I think I've decided to just not log my food for now. I would like to see the calorie counts, but I don't want to put in the effort this site requires. If I stop losing, then I may reconsider.

EmmaFitzwilliam

I resisted logging everything for *years*. Not since 1999 have I been this diligent about being honest with myself about what I eat.

At home, I weigh pretty much everything, or have portion control packages.

On the rare occasions when I eat out, I do my best to calculate if I don't have a nutritional information guide.

Logging and portion control have helped me drop nearly 1/3 of what I want to lose.

Diets focus on hitting a goal weight without changing the relationship with food. Only if I change my relationship with food can I get where I'm going, and stay there. Part of that is knowing what I eat.

Before I started logging everything, I was eating easily 250-500 excess calories a day, and had no clue. That's a pound a week the wrong direction :-/.

My plan? Eat real food, processed as little as possible, but eat what I choose without cutting entire food groups. I don't eat many grains, I eat a lot of protein, and I usually exceed the recommended fats.

For me, it was more about knowing every grande latte is 220 calories, an ounce of cheese is not as much as I think it is, and 2 (2!). Berry Newtons are 100 calories!

I don't like to eat anything "diet" or "lite". The three exceptions I make are "lite" salami, PB2, and 2% Fage. I eat a lot of fruit, occasional vegetables, hummus, and lots of grilled chicken. Or baked chicken. If I want a burger, I go to Fuddruckers for an elk burger. I order fries, but eat only a half portion. If I'm eating grains, it's usually oatmeal, 10 grain cereal, or a Wasa cracker.

Need2Exerc1se

I resisted logging everything for *years*. Not since 1999 have I been this diligent about being honest with myself about what I eat.

At home, I weigh pretty much everything, or have portion control packages.

On the rare occasions when I eat out, I do my best to calculate if I don't have a nutritional information guide.

Logging and portion control have helped me drop nearly 1/3 of what I want to lose.

Diets focus on hitting a goal weight without changing the relationship with food. Only if I change my relationship with food can I get where I'm going, and stay there. Part of that is knowing what I eat.

Before I started logging everything, I was eating easily 250-500 excess calories a day, and had no clue. That's a pound a week the wrong direction :-/.

I think we are in very different situations, you and I. I've gained about 30 lbs over the last 10 years or so. That works out to considerably less than 1 lb per week.

mbarnson

My aunt who passed a few years back had a heart attack due to undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes at 40. She required a quadruple bypass, if I recall correctly, and her heart was only operating at 25% capacity. In the wake of her first surgery, she carefully weighed and measured everything she ate, and ate at a stringent caloric deficit for the rest of her life, carefully logging her meals to keep things in check. She went from a morbidly obese forty-something to a thin, energetic forty-something in a few years.

The doctor told her to make the most of the next few years, because back then when she got the surgery (1970s), the life expectancy of a quadruple-bypass patient wasn't great.

She lived for almost forty more years before finally succumbing to the disease that tried to take her so young. She was never without her food scale and a few measuring cups and tablespoons in her purse, and credited that habit and her daily walks with keeping her alive so long.

Her powerful example convinces me that logging and tracking my food intake is worth it. If such caution quadruples the life expectancy of a diabetic bypass patient, imagine what it does for relatively healthy people?

EmmaFitzwilliam

I don't know how fast I actually gained the weight - in 2009 (I believe), I weighed 175. Some time later I was 185. Then I got sick and as of last June, I was at 225. By this June, I had dropped 5, so I consider my start weight to have been 220. However I got there, that's 45 pounds in 5 years.

Not a pound a week, but that was mostly hyperbole, based on the rule of thumb that "one pound is 3500 calories". I also have varying levels of activity, so probably burned more calories at some times than others, so the excess varied.

That said, all it takes is a tiny surplus - using the 3500 calorie guide, 50 excess calories a day *every day* is still a pound every 10 weeks, or 5 pounds a year. Most of us don't deliberately eat an excess 50 to 90 calories on a daily basis, but it makes the math easy and it demonstrates how the weight can sneak up on one.

In practice, I put on an average of 9 pounds a year. Since I hadn't weighed myself for some time, I don't know if it was 9 pounds a year or gained all at once, but even at only 9 pounds a year, that's <100 calories a day excess. Since I wasn't logging anything before, and since I have no clue about my burn rate, I may have overstated the excess. Or I may have been spot on and gained some or all of the weight at a faster rate.

Regardless, I recognize that as few as 50 calories a day over what I burn, for a sustained period, will put on the pounds.

Since I'm comparatively sedentary, I need to be aware of what I eat, and how much. One 50 calorie cookie may not be a big deal. Six 50 calorie cookies can be.

Knowledge is power. My favorite cookie from my favorite bakery clocks in at a whopping 450 calories. If I'm going to eat one, I need to be more restrained with the rest of my food choices that day/week.

Sure, portion control and accountability are a hassle. So is frequent grocery shopping to buy only the produce I reasonably expect to eat before it goes bad.

Still better than the alternative.

allyphoe

I log everything, but I measure almost nothing, and I don't have a food scale so anything measured is by volume only. I know from long experience that I estimate high, rather than low, so eyeballing is close enough for me to lose weight.

If I'm making a big pot of something that will be eaten over several meals, or something complex that's a staple food, I'll set up my estimated ingredients as a recipe for ease of entry over time.

If you've had a steady surplus of ~30 calories a day (which works out to 30 pounds in 10 years), you aren't going to be able to eliminate that small of a net surplus by logging calories more diligently, because you can't determine calories burned to that degree of accuracy. And it doesn't take any particular accuracy to lose weight, as long as you're accurate enough to know you're in a deficit.

I will say that it's harder to be 100% sure you're in a deficit if the deficit is small enough that you lose slowly. I lose pretty fast (~1 lb a week) and have enough day to day fluctuation to camouflage a month of steady losses.

bwogilvie

Now, the rest of the ingredients are all pretty low calorie - salsa, tomato sauce, onion, peppers, celery - and any one of them could be skipped with little impact. But if I skip them ALL, then what is the point? And if I have to weigh each of them, that just ruins the fun of cooking for me.

For low-calorie-density foods like most vegetables, salsa, etc., I use the USDA entries for "large onion," "celery, raw, medium stalk," etc. Even if you're off by 10-20%, it doesn't make much difference.

Don't skip logging them, but don't aim for needless precision by weighing them when you can use portions by size. Just weigh things like meat, cheese, avocado, nuts, and other calorie-dense solid foods, and measure oil, wine, and things like that.

I cook a lot from scratch and have created over 100 recipes in my MFP database over the course of 20 months. Now when I return to one of those recipes, I just edit it (if need be--it's easier to edit on my iPad than on the website, BTW) and reuse it.

chouflour

I don't see how people say weighing is difficult. I'd encourage you to ask yourself seriously why you're mentally making such a federal case out of it, because realistically it's simply not a big deal at all.

Is there any chance that part of you really just desperately wants to avoid being truly honest with yourself about the actual volume of what you're eating, and possibly have to take responsibility for cutting back?

I'm making pasta primavera tonight. There are 18 ingredients in the recipe, 11 of which vary slightly in weight every time I make it, and one of which is home-made chicken demi glace, which isn't an exactly reproducible product. The cooked pasta weight is slightly different each time, and the sauce reduces by a different amount each time. Which means not only would I have to weigh every ingredient, I'd have to weigh the finished product, then weigh my portion of it and calculate how many servings I ate.

I've done that, and it takes more time than cooking or eating. Especially if MFP is being "sticky" about ingredients/nutrients and forces me to delete the entire recipe and re-enter it before it behaves. I'm not willing to do that every night. Especially since it's impossible to get a completely representative serving.

I put the base recipe in MFP and let it match ingredients, estimated a volume and now I log "pasta primavera, 1 cup" and call it darn well good enough. When my husband cooks stir-fried zucchini and chicken in spicy garlic sauce - I log it as chinese food, by the cup. Some estimates are high, some are low - I don't fuss about it, because I don't eat any single recipe often enough that it dominates my diet.

My commitment is that I weigh myself every day and I follow the 10-day linear weighted moving average as my weight. If my weight isn't doing what I want - I adjust.

sympha01

I don't see how people say weighing is difficult. I'd encourage you to ask yourself seriously why you're mentally making such a federal case out of it, because realistically it's simply not a big deal at all.

Is there any chance that part of you really just desperately wants to avoid being truly honest with yourself about the actual volume of what you're eating, and possibly have to take responsibility for cutting back?

I'm making pasta primavera tonight. There are 18 ingredients in the recipe, 11 of which vary slightly in weight every time I make it, and one of which is home-made chicken demi glace, which isn't an exactly reproducible product. The cooked pasta weight is slightly different each time, and the sauce reduces by a different amount each time. Which means not only would I have to weigh every ingredient, I'd have to weigh the finished product, then weigh my portion of it and calculate how many servings I ate.

I've done that, and it takes more time than cooking or eating. Especially if MFP is being "sticky" about ingredients/nutrients and forces me to delete the entire recipe and re-enter it before it behaves. I'm not willing to do that every night. Especially since it's impossible to get a completely representative serving.

I put the base recipe in MFP and let it match ingredients, estimated a volume and now I log "pasta primavera, 1 cup" and call it darn well good enough. When my husband cooks stir-fried zucchini and chicken in spicy garlic sauce - I log it as chinese food, by the cup. Some estimates are high, some are low - I don't fuss about it, because I don't eat any single recipe often enough that it dominates my diet.

My commitment is that I weigh myself every day and I follow the 10-day linear weighted moving average as my weight. If my weight isn't doing what I want - I adjust.

LOL I agree 100% that MFP's interface for editing recipes sucks dead donkeys sideways. It's utterly absurd that you can't easily change quantities of ingredients after you add them to the recipe. My recipes with meat vary WIDELY in how much meat I add from one time I cook to the next, because I'm usually cutting up a roast that will vary quite a bit in weight each time I purchase one.

But every time I make prepare a recipe, I go in and edit it with the updated weights. It simply does not take a long time -- unless you are disorganzied. Frankly, the number of ingredients has nothing to do with it. Because weighing each ingredient literally takes only a few seconds. You're chopping and prepping the food anyway -- the weighing part is nothing. It's simply a matter of how organized you are in the kitchen. I will say it probably took me a while to build some new habits to include a weighing plan with my prepping plan, but even at the beginning it simply didn't take long -- it was just frustrating because "Oh, I forgot to get a clean bowl to weigh this ingredient" or "Oh, I put the chopped onions in the bowl with the breadcrumbs before I zeroed out the scale, whoops." But those were my mistakes, my failure to be organized, not the act of weighing itself.

Also, one simple tip: to the greatest extent possible, weigh each ingredient before cooking it, not after cooking. It sounds like maybe you're weighing cooked pasta instead of dry pasta. Weighing cooked foods is a PITA. Not only is the calorie count of cooked foods less accurate (because the cooking method will hydrate / dehydrate foods inconsistently each time you prepare, which will change the weight of the food but not the calorie or nutritional profile), plus you always seem to end up with extra dirty dishes.

lemurcat12

This is interesting. Chili and stew are actually ones that I find a pain, but that's not the logging, but the need to mess around trying to figure out serving sizes at the end. I usually end up estimating, but I also eat very little of that kind of food in warmer weather--it may get more annoying in the winter.

Examples: Let's say I'm making chili.
Ground venison - this is a pretty easy one since we freeze it in 1.5 lb packages. Beans, again not too hard since they are in pint jars.

Now, the rest of the ingredients are all pretty low calorie - salsa, tomato sauce, onion, peppers, celery - and any one of them could be skipped with little impact. But if I skip them ALL, then what is the point? And if I have to weigh each of them, that just ruins the fun of cooking for me.

See, to me weighing and logging these doesn't seem to add much. I do it while I'm cooking. Prep, chop, whatever, measure, toss it in. If I go back and add some extra onion I'd weigh it after chopping and toss it in--not because it's meaningful calories, but because it's just naturally part of the process to me. I note it down on a piece of paper.

Another - roast chicken. Sounds easy, but do you weigh it, then eat, then weigh again to see what you actually ate?

Here's one I make a lot, so it fits with my simple style of cooking and is not burdensome to weigh and log IMO. Yes, you weigh it and weigh it at the end if you put a piece with bone on your plate. Or, if you carve it up before hand and just take meat, you can weigh it before, just dark and white separately.

So, I'm taking my dinner refuse and weighing it?

In this case, sure. It's easy enough when clearing the table and doing the dishes, IMO.

And for marinades - do you weigh the marinade before adding meat, then weigh it again after the meat is removed to see how much was absorbed by or coated the meat?

No, I just log the significant parts of the marinade and realize I'm over counting. I don't do a lot of marinades with high-cal ingredients, though.

Homemade pickles are also a problem.

This is true, but also not especially high in calorie. I just got some pickling cucumbers (I know you pickle a lot of more interesting things from another post), so would probably log them as cucumbers or else look up the USDA entry if there is one. The calories are low enough that it doesn't seem to matter much.

Need2Exerc1se

I have been deemed disorganized in the kitchen. I wouldn't have thought so with the amount of cooking, canning, pickling and freezing of food that I do. But the internet says I am. Oh well, I can live with that. I've apparently been happily living with it all my life anyway.

Honestly, I'm not asking for approval or asking anyone to justify why they measure their food. Do your thing. I was just trying to see if I was missing some trick that made this all easy. It seems I am not. It's just not my thing.

sympha01

This is interesting. Chili and stew are actually ones that I find a pain, but that's not the logging, but the need to mess around trying to figure out serving sizes at the end.

That used to bug me too but I've got an answer for that now! Get ready to have your mind blown.

Once the stew or chili is done, weigh the whole pot of it. (I ultimately had to get a scale that could weigh up to 7 lbs). Now record the recipe in MFP as that number of ounces or grams or whatever you use. I made chili just the other night and the final results ended up weighing 3052 grams, so I recorded the recipe as 3052 servings. (Some people will record it in 100 grams, so 30.52 servings, if you like).

Each time you have a portion, weigh that portion out and log it in MFP as that number of servings. I had a big bowl Sunday night at 480 grams, so I logged it as 480 servings (if I had recorded the recipe as 30.52 servings, then I would have logged 4.8 servings that night). I had a smaller bowl for lunch yesterday at 400 grams, so I logged 400 servings.

Before somebody tipped me off to that I used to just count ladlesful. So when the final pot was done, I'd transfer the contents from the pot to my storage container(s) in ladles and count each one, record the recipe as a number of servings equal to the ladlesful, then each serving I'd count the ladles again. Which frankly, also worked fine but might have been a little less precise.

chouflour

LOL I agree 100% that MFP's interface for editing recipes sucks dead donkeys sideways. It's utterly absurd that you can't easily change quantities of ingredients after you add them to the recipe. My recipes with meat vary WIDELY in how much meat I add from one time I cook to the next, because I'm usually cutting up a roast that will vary quite a bit in weight each time I purchase one.

But every time I make prepare a recipe, I go in and edit it with the updated weights. It simply does not take a long time -- unless you are disorganzied.

See the dead donkeys above. Having spent 10 minutes with a list of weights, trying to get MFP to update the calories for the recipe accurately? It's not worth my time. Especially if the issue isn't that I used a different amount of a given vegetable, but that I substituted one ingredient for another? Or changed the number of serving sizes? Those usually mean it's faster to recreate the recipe, and I'm not doing that.

Also, one simple tip: to the greatest extent possible, weigh each ingredient before cooking it, not after cooking. It sounds like maybe you're weighing cooked pasta instead of dry pasta. Weighing cooked foods is a PITA. Not only is the calorie count of cooked foods less accurate (because the cooking method will hydrate / dehydrate foods inconsistently each time you prepare, which will change the weight of the food but not the calorie or nutritional profile), plus you always seem to end up with extra dirty dishes.

No, the issue is that you have to weigh the finished product as well. And then everything you put on your plate. And that portioning foods isn't accurate either. If I took 10% of the pasta, did I also take 10% of the sauce, and 10% of each of the vegetables? No, probably not. All I'm doing is giving myself the illusion of accuracy.

Especially since what really happens is that I make pasta primavera. My daughter eats mostly pasta and sauce, with a few of her favorite vegetables and tastes of the others. My husband eats sauce and veggies, because that fits his low-carb diet and adds a meat. I eat a mix of all of it, but preferentially eat the vegetables that suit my diet best. There's no benefit to trying to model my recipe vs a "standard" primavera.

I also have real concerns about modeling the behavior of compulsively weighing my food. My daughter is 10. That's a hard enough age to be without your mother demonstrating that women weigh and track every morsel that they eat.

MelodyandBarbells

I have been deemed disorganized in the kitchen. I wouldn't have thought so with the amount of cooking, canning, pickling and freezing of food that I do. But the internet says I am. Oh well, I can live with that. I've apparently been happily living with it all my life anyway.

Honestly, I'm not asking for approval or asking anyone to justify why they measure their food. Do your thing. I was just trying to see if I was missing some trick that made this all easy. It seems I am not. It's just not my thing.

I just don't understand how putting an item on a scale sucks away the joy of cooking. Guess we're all having trouble understanding each other. And no I wouldn't skip all the supplemental ingredients. I might skip weighing them. If they're canned the nutritional info on the package is good enough. If not I can use MFP's generic entry as suggested by a previous poster. And yeah, I do prefer boneless skinless meat because they're easier to log

Like I said I use the app. Editing recipes is a breeze. If I'm substituting ingredients, I set the one being taken out to quantity 0 and add the new one into the recipe at the quantity I want.