weighing food is important

I made the mistake of baking homemade chocolate chip cookies yesterday. There are just certain foods I cannot have around because I cannot control myself with portions! Anyway, I ate about 11 of them! I looked them up on the site and logged it. So even though I had been with my personal trainer for over an hour that morning, I went back and burned another 500 calories last night to help even out the cookies.

Then today I had some more! As I looked them up again, I found a listing that showed the calories based on the weight of the cookie instead of the number of cookies. So I weighed the ones I made, and they only weigh 13g! That is only 35 calories as opposed the the 100+ count I was using for one cookie!

Lesson learned...if information is available for weight of food, use that!

Replies

  • Melo1966
    Melo1966 Posts: 881 Member
    You make tiny cookies.
  • YoungDoc2B
    YoungDoc2B Posts: 1,593 Member
    35 calories per cookie? Feel free to post the recipe lol
  • SweetxCatastrophe
    SweetxCatastrophe Posts: 593 Member
    Weighing is a great idea. Technically those giant cookies at the mall could be counted as 1 cookie, but we all know that's not true ;)
    Everyone is going to have a different idea of portion, so weighing food out is the best way to stay accurate
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
    I made the mistake of baking homemade chocolate chip cookies yesterday. There are just certain foods I cannot have around because I cannot control myself with portions! Anyway, I ate about 11 of them! I looked them up on the site and logged it. So even though I had been with my personal trainer for over an hour that morning, I went back and burned another 500 calories last night to help even out the cookies.

    Then today I had some more! As I looked them up again, I found a listing that showed the calories based on the weight of the cookie instead of the number of cookies. So I weighed the ones I made, and they only weigh 13g! That is only 35 calories as opposed the the 100+ count I was using for one cookie!

    Lesson learned...if information is available for weight of food, use that!

    I'm not sure how accurate weighing homemade chocolate chip cookies is, it would seem that recipes could vary a lot from what's already entered in the existing database. Best to enter your own recipe into the data base and use that calculation. And anyway I wouldn't need a food scale to tell me 11 cookies is too much.
  • mbryant22
    mbryant22 Posts: 24 Member
    I do make tiny cookies, I can eat it in one bite. It is just the recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse morsels.

    Ok, scratch 35 calories! I did some online research and they are 60 calories based on the size I am making. But that's still better than what I was recording at 100 calories per cookie.
  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
    Don't go by any entries in the database if you made them from scratch, you have no idea what their ingredients were compared to yours. Enter your entire recipe into MFP and put the number of servings at the numbers of cookies that you got from the recipe.
  • mbryant22
    mbryant22 Posts: 24 Member
    Haha, 11 cookies is too much! I had a bad PMS day...

    But I still recorded the calories and came under my goal for the day! I'm okay with it, I've moved on :)
  • mbryant22
    mbryant22 Posts: 24 Member
    I didn't know I could enter a recipe on here! I will go look for that now, thanks!
  • Shock_Wave
    Shock_Wave Posts: 1,573 Member
    Yup in the beginning I found out the hard way just like you but with Spaghetti noodles.. I did not weigh them and when I finally did I was amazed at how many carbs and cals I was eating haha.
  • urbestlife32
    urbestlife32 Posts: 9 Member
    This is for the lady who made the small cookies...You have lost alot of weight. I was wondering if you could help answer a question. The net calories we are consuming on a daily basis.....does that include your exercising that was set up in the beginning of the profile. If I dont exercise one day am I suppose to eat less? Need help. Thanks.
  • Meg_78
    Meg_78 Posts: 998 Member
    I'm not sure how accurate weighing homemade chocolate chip cookies is, it would seem that recipes could vary a lot from what's already entered in the existing database. Best to enter your own recipe into the data base and use that calculation. And anyway I wouldn't need a food scale to tell me 11 cookies is too much.

    This...I would not even count someone ease's recipe/entry...it most likely is different to what you made anyway.
  • 022988
    022988 Posts: 11 Member
    I agree! Some things I find out are more calories than expected and some less. Today I had a piece of garlic bread for lunch. The box gave calories for 1 slice (39g) but when I weighed mine it was actually 50g - 35 extra calories.

    Yesterday was the opposite, I used some frozen fruit in my smoothie. The bag had calories listed for 1 cup; I forget how many grams. When I weighed my cup, it was only half the grams listed on the box, so I was able to have a lot more fruit than expected. I'm now being much more careful to go by grams when I have that info available.
  • KittieLea
    KittieLea Posts: 1,156 Member
    That's bullsh!t.







    I can't believe you didn't share with me.