Do u count calories if it is just a bite or two?

It's your weight loss.

I don't snack. I measure and weigh my foods, and eat them when they're done.

I think you should but good luck with that.....I kick myself everytime I do that because now I have to figure out how much I ate of what and how many spoonfulls I had and how the heck do you even log a sample....ugggggg...lol

It is difficult when you're cooking.

You might try regularly staying under your calorie goal by 100 or so calories to account for 2 or 3 tastes and an occasional grape stolen from the bowl in the fridge. Uh oh! Gave myself away!

it all depends on how many bites and tastes you take maybe add 150 extra calories on a good cooking day just to be safe or maybe more depending on what you are tasting

I personally am not that militant. A bite of mashed potatoes isn't going to hinder your weightloss.

OP- since you are eating so far under your calorie goal (according to the last 2 days where you only ate around 800), it won't matter.

I struggle with the same issue. I love to cook and know the importance of tasting while cooking. I account for it by reducing my portion size for the meal. I agree with the previous responses; if you eat it, there are calories to be counted. That said, it is difficult to calculate "tastes" when tweaking a recipe so you just have to use good judgment. None of this is an exact science but as long as you have a reasonable deficit at the end of the day, or average for the week, a taste or two while cooking is not going to break you. If you are willing to calculate the calories per spoonful, I would suggest you log it because in the end you are only accountable to yourself. By the way, when I calculated my mashed potato recipe, it was not as bad as I'd originally thought so I ate them!

I love to cook! Most of the meals I cook now are healthy but 2 night I made some mashed potatoes for the family to go with healthy roast turkey. Whenever I am cooking I like to taste , seasoning ,etc do I really have to count every bite ? I didn't eat any with dinner .

I would, especially as you only have 10 lbs to lose. If you aren't really accurate, you're going to wonder why you aren't losing.

Say you only have 5 of these bites a day. For 100 calories. If you're on a 250 calorie deficit to lose .5 pounds per week, there's nearly half your deficit wiped out!

Nice observation. I personally have a lot to lose and I don't count things like a cracker or a few chips because my margin for error is bigger. If I come out 50 calories under for the day, I figure it balances. Plus, I'm moving constantly at work somedays and can walk a good five miles, other days I do hardly anything so for the week I figure it balances somewhere.

Absolutely. I do. These calories can add up QUICKLY. For example, say you are 44-years-old, 5'4" tall, and weigh 157 pounds. You "forget" and put mayonnaise on your hamburger. That is 100 calories. It would take you 25 minutes of walking at 3 mph to work off the little bit of mayonnaise. Maybe a few fries left over from the kids? More calories, more walking. A couple spoons of mashed potatoes? More calories, more walking. One could easily add 500 extra calories a day by "tasting" a little bit of this and a little bit of that while cooking.

It is your weight loss journey and the choice is yours.

one bite of raw baby spinach.. probably not.

one bite of milk chocolate or a whole spoonful of mayo, or something else high in calories per serving YES

I don't, but that's because 50 calories make little to no difference in a day for me. If I was taking a bite or two of different things all day, I'd record it.

Even though I am in maintenance, I count everything, so yes.

Nope. Just gotta make sure that one bite doesn't turn into 10

It is all perspective versus measurement ...

If you are taking a bite or two of triple chocolate layered cheesecake or a few bites of potato .... a bit of a difference. The big thing is people sometimes overlook what they are snacking on or do not even realize they are snacking as much as they are...Eating the cookie dough before its baked sort of thing.


It is your choice... it is your choice on how exact to be or not to be my suggestion though is to always input the higher average calorie count ... but that is just me its still your choice.

The important part is consistency.

I personally am not that militant. A bite of mashed potatoes isn't going to hinder your weightloss.

This. No way could I have managed to log for so long if I were militant about logging a bite of food while cooking. I would have given up ages ago.

And, for the record, people are fooling themselves if they think everything they log is perfectly accurate. Nutrition labels in the US can legally be 20% off, above or below the stated calorie count. I do not weigh out the recipes I make to get the precise right serving, and even if I did, how do I know the raw chicken I used was precisely the same number of calories as the chicken that was tested to determine the nutrition content? Answer: I do not. Everything is an estimate.

Obviously if your bite here and there becomes a bite all the time and an excuse to eat more than your calorie goal, your weight loss might be hindered.

But nothing is going to be exact anyway. A bite of mashed potatoes to determine seasoning will not impact anything significantly.