Weighing vs measuring food

Great post. I learned this lesson when I bought a food scale.

I still get a little teary-eyed when I weigh out 32g of peanut butter, and remember what I used to call 2 tablespoons.

Nothing like the realization you were eating 500 calories more everyday than you thought you were.

The weight of the onion is to be weighed before you chop it up not after. You are inflating calories this way.
Just like you weigh meat before cooking not after.

Typically you don't weigh meat before. A serving of chicken is approximately 4 oz raw or 3 oz cooked. Most databases use cooked meat values (according to a few articles I've read). When you cook meat, you lose some of the fat.

On the weight of the onion, weighing it after you chop it is fine since there is no change in moisture content or anything else occuring during the chopping. If you are weighing it raw, weighing it chopped or whole shouldn't make a calorie difference, except if you discard part of the onion while chopping, then your weight would be off.

As for weighing meat, to be the most accurate, you should weigh it BEFORE cooking as the raw weight is much more accurate than the cooked weight. In the MFP database, if you put in chicken breast, raw or ribeye steak, raw, etc. it is easy to find these measurements that use raw instead of cooked. The reason for weighing anything (meat or veggies) raw is that when you cook something, the final weight is determined by how much moisture is lost or gained, which can vary greatly. You really aren't losing a ton of fat when you cook most items. The only time I really make an exception to the pre-cooked and after cooked weight is ground meat when I cook the meat and drain AND rinse the meat. Then, I look for an entry that describes that process. In that case, you are losing a good deal of fat through the cooking and draining and rinsing process. But, if you start with boneless skinless chicken, there's really very little fat to lose during cooking.


A great example of why raw weight is better than cooked weight is steak. You could start with an 8 oz ribeye and have it cooked medium-rare and weigh 6.5 oz cooked and then go ahead and cook it further to make it well done and the final weight could be 5 oz cooked. Track it raw and you are tracking nearly 450 calories; using one of the "cooked, grilled" entries, the medium rare 6.5 oz steak comes out to about 439 calories but the well done 5 oz cooked steak only comes up as 336 calories. That's a huge discrepency for that one piece of meat when the only thing that changed was how much moisture was lost. The same happens with pork chops and chicken and lots of foods. If you cook yours and it comes out "dry" and weighs an ounce less than mine does, but we both started with the same size chop, are you really getting less calories than me? Nope, you're just getting less moisture.

Just being off by a little bit here and there can quickly lead to frustration and "stalls".

Wow. Never really thought of it that way before. I always just measure by volume, but I wouldn't be surprised if I've been over-eating by mistake. Time to buy a food scale!

Eye opening. Not sure how this got by me! I weigh most things but measure a few things. No more!

I agree. A food scale is a must.

Weigh to go. Great post.

I lol'd

Anyway, I always, always, always weigh every thing. It's easier too cause then I am only dirtying the plate I put the food on, no measuring cups to wash. I even weigh out my milk into my coffee(122 grams per 1/2 cup) to avoid extra stuff to wash, hehe.

To make it a little less daunting for people, I can suggest a bit of a compromise:

Weigh all calorie-dense foods, estimate with the lighter stuff.

What I mean by this is with spinach (7 calories/cup), celery, etc. an over- or underestimation isn't going to be reflected by a large calorie difference.

But with cheese, sauces/dressing, nuts, hemp hearts, yogurt, milk, cereal... it matters.

This is working for me. That said, if I stall out/plateau, you better believe I'm going to get more anal-retentive about weighing my food.

Great post. I learned this lesson when I bought a food scale.

I still get a little teary-eyed when I weigh out 32g of peanut butter, and remember what I used to call 2 tablespoons.

HILARIOUS! I've been there!

Great post. I learned this lesson when I bought a food scale.

I still get a little teary-eyed when I weigh out 32g of peanut butter, and remember what I used to call 2 tablespoons.

Just ordered a scale just for that^^^^^ among other items.

Thank you for this post.. I have a great food scale but have really only been weighing my meats and stuff, however things like 1/2 cup of nuts, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, or even 1 cup of cereal I have just been using measuring cups. I would like to be doing this right but to be honest I have no idea what 1/2 a cup is in grams. If anyone has a link to some charts for this info it would be great. Thanks