Weighing food

rvicini

This site is great and makes the experience of losing weight a fantastic learning experience.
It is odd the feeling from others regarding food accountability.
Who's business is except mine?
Since I am a newbie in understanding portions, I like to weight my portions to understand what I can eat and how much.
People do not usually like it and make fun of it all the time.
I go along and also do it but the people around can be annoying at times. Not that I care much really.
What is your experience? How do you calculate your cals? Do you do it at eating time like I do?
It is interesting to understand different technics to weight portions while I am out.
Your comments please....

Healthydiner65

I use my digital food scale daily.I weigh or measure my portions so that I know how many calories I am consuming!

CINDYRN33

I weigh everything! If I am going to eat it it has to be weighed. Its the only way to be 100% accurate, overestimating food portions is one of the things that got me here in the first place.

Brandi1168

I weigh or measure (with measuring spoons or cups) everything. My husband is on MFP too so he weighs and measures too, but not to the extent that I do. I don't trust myself to know what a serving size looks like yet.

jakiram

I also use a digital scale all the time. Of course I already know my typical breakfast etc. by heart so I don´t have to measure them and I don´t take my scale with me when I´m eating out. When I don´t have the scale I estimate the amounts (usually I tend to over estimate). And I prefer to take lunch from home to work that way I know exactly what and how much I´m eating. My family is already used to me calculating everything, if I forget to do so, they´ll remind me.

deniseblossoms

I weigh and measure. I am pretty decent at eyeballing larger amounts in the ounces, I make a game out of it while I'm weighing. I am TERRIBLE at tablespoons. Before I started logging my tablespoons were more like 1/4 cups.

KirstenO15973

I weigh each ingredients that I'm using for every meal and snack, except if I'm out!! Most of my meals I put it in the recipe section so I know the calories for each serving and if I make it again I still weigh the ingredients!! I'm happy and don't care what people think cause I know exactly what I'm eating and not guessing!! My 14 year old son rolls his eyes but at least I know what he's eating too LOL!!

Canderson58054

When I first started, I weighed or measured everything. Since then I've discovered what serving spoons are 1/2 c, 1/4c 1/3c etc... So that when I am having Dinner with my family ( which is the only meal we really all eat together) I can seem somewhat normal :blushing: I also know which glasses in my cuppboard are 1c glasses incase i want milk

rvicini

I heard you could use spoons to estimate portions while you are out. Do you guys know anything about it?

nanainkent

I weigh and measure (with measuring spoons and cups) everything. Thing is I obviously do not know what a portion is and that is what got me here, so I need to weigh and measure so I can learn what a portion or serving size is. If someone is getting on you about you doing it, just suggest that you weigh thier food for a day and see how they are doing for serving size. Might be an eye opener for them.

rungirl1973

I've done it in the past, but I don't generally weigh / measure what I'm eating. I've got a pretty good handle on what a portion size should be.

Portion size is not what got me here, though, it's bingeing. My nutritionist advised me against weighing and measuring... obsessing too much about what I'm eating sets me up for a binge.

kentmac

Eventually you'll feel comfortable eyeballing portions while you're eating out or dining with friends. I like to use my hand/fist as rough estimate for protein portions and things like that!

Also, I like your point rungirl - weighing and measuring can be detrimental if it becomes obsessive, leading to binging down the line. Not everyone has that response to it, but watch yourself for it!

MIM49

Question regarding weighing/measuring food: do you weigh/measure before or after cooking? For example 1 cup frozen vegetables = 40 calories. However a frozen cupful becomes 1/2 cup after cooking and water is drained off. Steak--4 oz trimmed before cooking weighs less after cooking when more fat has melted and cooked off.

thethingirlinside

Well for me it was an eye opener I've always eaten every thing in a regular size cereal bowls .thought to my self seems reasonable size ,but one day I put my snack in a glass measureing bowl and I was floored I had been eat.ing three servings from that point on I measure every thing

Gramps251

This site is great and makes the experience of losing weight a fantastic learning experience.
It is odd the feeling from others regarding food accountability.
Who's business is except mine?
Since I am a newbie in understanding portions, I like to weight my portions to understand what I can eat and how much.
People do not usually like it and make fun of it all the time.
I go along and also do it but the people around can be annoying at times. Not that I care much really.
What is your experience? How do you calculate your cals? Do you do it at eating time like I do?
It is interesting to understand different technics to weight portions while I am out.
Your comments please....

I use my scale all the time. I can't imagine why anyone would comment on it. No one has yet but then again, who is in my kitchen other than me and my wife. I don't carry it into a restraunt or to work.

As to accountability, you're opinion is the only one that matters unless you ask for suggestions. My diary is always open for people to look at and I check out other's diaries for ideas. (Thanks everyone, I've learned a lot)

I log most of my food in the morning since I carry it with me to work and know what I'm going to eat. I leave about 500 calories free for dinner and snacks and add them to my diary as I eat them or shortly after.

The food diary is a great tool.

kr1stadee

I weigh and measure everything!

I feel cheated and am tempted to lick the plate when my 3oz of chicken doesn't use all 1 TBSP of barbecue sauce... LOL

Bess_74

I weigh & measure everything at home, there are some things that because I eat them so often I know what a portions size in a specific dish or glass looks like, however I will still measure or weight it out periodically to make sure I"m staying on track. If I'm packing a meal at home again, I weigh & measure everything. I understand though that it's difficult to weigh & measure everything when eating out or at someone else's house. I found this guide that I love to help estimate portion sizes when I can't weight & measure.
http://caloriecount.about.com/article/when_you_cant_measure_estimate_portions

dls06

I weighed everything in the beginning. I didn't care what anyone says.

Time4achange77

Weigh everything! I use measuring cups and scales.

BlackKat75

I weigh everything. I used to weigh and measure - meaning if the label referred to a portion by volume (e.g., a cup), I would just measure it rather than weigh it. Having read a few comments on here about inaccuracies coming from measuring volume rather than weight, I've started weighing everything and do not rely on volume measurements because I've found volume measurements generally understate calories by 20-30%. For example, I eat old-fashioned oats for breakfast. According to the label, a 1/2 cup is 40 grams for 150 calories. Turns out when I weighed my 1/2 cup of oats, it was 51 grams, so I was actually eating 191 calories. I've found this to be true with a wide variety of foods and since labels generally always reference both a weight and volume, I just go with the weight.

As for picking which item, I generally weigh my meat while raw. If you look through the database and specify "raw," for the ingredient you can generally find it. I often make homemade stews and soups, so I have to calculate ingredients in the recipe from their precooked weights. I don't want to fiddle around trying to weigh food just as it's ready to go on the dining table - would rather do it as a part of the preparation. The real key is find something that works for you.

Amo_Angelus

I offer to help out with the cooking...that way I cn weigh it, otherwise I guess and leave room for error...

Tara1B

I'm pretty good when it comes to estimating but I find cereal weights difficult to guess as some are much bulkier than others. What looks the same in a bowl could be double the weight! Looking at other people's diaries, I've found a lot of people find this a problem too. Especially as a serving size on a packet is usually nowhere near what an actual normal serving is. I find people logging 20-25g of cereal which is a pretty measly breakfast - I'm logging double that!