Counting Calories Accurately - Tips & Methods

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  • xxnellie146xx
    xxnellie146xx Posts: 996 Member
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    This is going to sound stupid, but...

    How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad. :(

    That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.

    Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.

    I place the jar on the scale, tare it, scoop and measure it that way. If it says -16g, you have a tbsp of pb! I find this the easiest way.
  • snookumss
    snookumss Posts: 1,451 Member
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    Look, I weigh everything at home, but if I'm out at a restaurant or eating at a friend's house, I'm going to need to eyeball. My takeaway from your thread is that you wanted to do away with all non-grams measurements. I didn't say anything on there since I figured everyone else was probably saying plenty, but there's something to be said for having ALL the options available.

    HOW can you learn to EYEBALL accurately If you DO NOT see the true measurements frequently? I learned so quickly after I began to use a scale what 4oz REALLY looked like, or 30g of various vegetables! An ounce of carrots? I can estimate that too! BUT it took me some visual time Actually measuring these things to be able to ESTIMATE while out there without my scale.


    Go ahead, eyeball everything and you become your own demise, even my eyes need refreshers.
  • snookumss
    snookumss Posts: 1,451 Member
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    This is going to sound stupid, but...

    How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad. :(

    Put it ONTO whatever it is you'll eat it with! Sandwich? Tare the scale with the bread on it, and spread on the peanut butter! The new weight shown on the scale, is your peanut butter! Best way, no mess!
  • janinab75
    janinab75 Posts: 147 Member
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    Wow, great advice. Thanks! I've actually started to weigh more than measure mainly because I've found it to be easier and more accurate. But great tips on the zeroing out on the bread then adding the mustard, didn't think of that. This is really helpful!
  • spirit05
    spirit05 Posts: 204 Member
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    Bump for reference
  • violenceandlace
    violenceandlace Posts: 30
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    This is going to sound stupid, but...

    How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad. :(

    That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.

    Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.

    You could weigh the container of peanut butter before and after
  • janupshaw
    janupshaw Posts: 205 Member
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    I have been wondering about how to measure peanut butter as well! I have not had any PBJ's for that reason. I knew I wouldn't eyeball 2 Tablespoons good enough (and will probably need 3 or 4 T), plus I was going to be irritated if I used a Tablespoon and a bunch of the peanut butter stuck to it...Thanks!
  • Moonbeamlissie
    Moonbeamlissie Posts: 504 Member
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    Instead of denying the food, search for estimates. If a pretzel has on average 350 kcal and the average pretzel weighs 80g, weight you pretzel and take a guess instead of not eating it at all. Spare some calories at the end of the day to incorporate possible wrong estimates if you need to be very precise.

    //Edit: Actually, just googling 'pretzel' automatically gives you nutritional info based on averages on the right side of the screen. Of course it's "rough", but then again, nothing is exactly what it says on the box and at the end of the day, the most damage comes from people manipulating themselves, not because the pretzel had 15kcal more or whatever.


    This exactly! My thing is yes accuracy is awesome and that is what I strive to be but if your giving up food because you may be off a few calories well then what a life you will have!! Right?? Yes I want to lose weight. Yes I have cut out food. I have even cut out food simply because I do not know the actual calorie count but I am not trying to get so anal that I can not be happy.

    Edited to say and not ALL foods have the accurate calorie counts listed. They found out that this artic something or other Icecream was not the 150 calories that it said but more like 250!
  • laylaness
    laylaness Posts: 262 Member
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    This is going to sound stupid, but...

    How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad. :(

    That's exactly how pretty much. Or substitute spoon for bowl/saucer or whatever.

    Thanks. I was hoping someone would have a way where I wouldn't get it all over my fingers. Though I'm so clumsy it would probably happen any way I tried to weigh it.

    You could weigh the container of peanut butter before and after

    OMG! Epiphany! Thank you!
  • Emmienz
    Emmienz Posts: 29
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    Great post!!! I normally weigh everything but my scales battary died two days ago so have been "guessing" for two days now then went and got a new battary this morning and then got to work and weigh my guessed lunch OH how wrong i was and these were eye guessing at things i have weigh out heaps of times !!! back to weighing everything for me !! to save time i pre weigh things for my lunches breakfast etc so im not trying to weigh everything in the morning when im trying to get out for work and less chance of cheating !
  • glin23
    glin23 Posts: 460 Member
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    This exactly! My thing is yes accuracy is awesome and that is what I strive to be but if your giving up food because you may be off a few calories well then what a life you will have!! Right?? Yes I want to lose weight. Yes I have cut out food. I have even cut out food simply because I do not know the actual calorie count but I am not trying to get so anal that I can not be happy.

    Edited to say and not ALL foods have the accurate calorie counts listed. They found out that this artic something or other Icecream was not the 150 calories that it said but more like 250!

    Keep in mind especially with total calories, a lot of it is rounding/estimation. If you want to be accurate, calculate it the long way ((x of g. of carb * 4) + (x g. of protein * 4) + (x g. of fat * 9) = total calories. FWIW, I also am not a fan of the whole net carb thing, but that's another thread.
  • TheLongRunner
    TheLongRunner Posts: 688 Member
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    I AGREE 100% with this post! :)
  • diadia1
    diadia1 Posts: 223 Member
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    big thanks for that post. . I never done that(weight food) before and i guess that's why it was working very well.
    But since i have joined MFP, almost all the time i weight my food
    (banane, big surprise there?
  • diadia1
    diadia1 Posts: 223 Member
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    big thanks for that post. . I never done that(weight food) before and i guess that's why it was working very well.
    But since i have joined MFP, almost all the time i weight my food . I though i was crazy doing this for EVERYTHING.
    banane, big surprise there? a portion is not a lot. a normal banane is more around 2 portion. I now only buy the smallest one...


    sorry wasnt finished. my keyboard was frozen.
  • Turnaround2012
    Turnaround2012 Posts: 362 Member
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    Great Post - Lots of good ideas.

    I have gone to the "Dark Side" and finally started using a scale LOL!
  • LAnne16
    LAnne16 Posts: 272 Member
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    I know it's necessary, but it's so depressing... I feel like you become OCD doing it like this... I measure MOST things, but there's some things I just don't because it seems silly... But I'm probably losing calories this way..
  • theseus82
    theseus82 Posts: 255 Member
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    This is a really great post! I learned a few things! I've not struggled to lose weight overall, but there are times when I have to reassess how I'm counting certain foods when I'm in a plateau.

    I've been through various plateaus, and it always turns out that there was some food I wasn't counting efficiently. I always had to look back and reassess, and I've always identified the problem and fixed it.

    I use a digital scale now for a lot of things.

    What I DEFINITELY appreciate from this post is learning that Splenda is 4 calories per gram. I had no idea! I've been using a ton of Splenda lately. Now I'm going to start weighing it!
  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
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    I been weighing everything for several months now! There was a post similar to this and I started weighing my peanut butter and could not believe how far off I was, by over 100 calories!!!
  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
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    This is going to sound stupid, but...

    How do you weigh your peanut butter? I end up doing a tare for my spoon and then scooping peanut butter and then putting the whole thing on my scale. It's messy and it makes me sad. :(

    I usually lay my bread on the scale then drop peanut butter till I get the proper amount of grams.
  • Anthonydaman
    Anthonydaman Posts: 854 Member
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    So well put, thank you

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