Counting Calories Accurately - Tips & Methods

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.

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?

Great Post - Lots of good ideas.

I have gone to the "Dark Side" and finally started using a scale LOL!

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!

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.

since when does peanut butter have calories?

I know, right?! MY peanut butter is calorie-free! HAHA. Oh, I wish!

Great tips!

For now all I can do is to not eat max of my recommended calorie intake here coz I know a lot of the food recorded here are low-balling calories. And also not eating back exercise calories or if i do over eat my calories, i'd need to have at least 300 more on exercise.

Just a few of the things I can do while traveling and can't cook my own food.

When in doubt regarding the accuracy of an item, I compare it to the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory Food Lists ( http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list ) This database has foods listed by 100 gram portion, and several other options. Example: Apples, raw, with skin is listed by Value per 100.0g, 1cup, quartered or chopped (125g), 1 cup slices (109g), 1 large (3-1/4" dia. 223g), 1 medium (3" dia. 182g), 1 small (2-3/4" dia. 149g), 1 extra small (2-1/2" dia. 101g), or NLEA serving 242g.

If an item in the MFP does not list grams, I go to the USDA database and use this information to create a new entry in "My Foods" . And, I always enter things in the "My Foods" list as 100g. It is easier, and much more likely to be accurate, if I enter the portion of 100g I am using, than if I am trying to adjust cups to tablespoons (FYI- 2T = 0.125 cups of flour or 15g).

As far as weighing meats cooked or uncooked - there are usually entries in the USDA database that list it either way. I use raw weights when entering a recipe (Beef Stew), and cooked weight when eating it plain (steak). I use raw weights to build my MFP recipe, and indicate how many servings the recipe will serve. Once cooked, I weigh the entire batch and divide by number of servings. If the Beef Stew I created makes 4 servings and the entire batch weighs 728g, I know that one serving is 182g. I can then dish out my 182g and know, with relative accuracy, that I am eating the number of calories I think I am.
As a side note - that pot of beef stew will need to be weighed every time I make it, because sometimes I cook out more liquid than other times. I either portion it all out right then, or I will modify my recipe title to indicate what the current serving size is - Beef Stew (182g serving).

Bumping for later, thanks.

Bumping to save

Great information... Bump.

Bump, and save!

If a food listed in MFP only has a volume measurement and it’s not a free pouring liquid, ignore it, go the label or the producer’s website and find the calories by weight. If this fails, consider not eating that food. I’m not kidding.

That advice makes me sad. : (

I know people do that sort of thing, but I hate to think of people giving up foods just because their calorie count might have a margin of error of more than a couple calories.

Yeah, I agree. If I had listened to the "always weigh your food" crowd in the beginning, I would have failed before I started because I had no money to buy a food scale. I lost the first 60 pounds while using only volume measurements for *every* thing. When my mom gave me a food scale about a month ago, I started weighing everything and found that I was *spot on* in my volume measurements. For anyone that had Home Ec or cooking classes in high school. you learned how to correctly measure a variety of things by volume. There is a right and a wrong weigh to measure various dry goods. If you are fitting 60g of oatmeal in a 1/2 cup measuring scoop, then you didn't take any cooking classes and should educate yourself. And mustard? How much mustard are people *dumping* on their sandwiches that the 5 calorie per tsp difference is going to close their calorie deficit? :noway:

It reminds me of all the veteran runners that tell the newbies that they *have* to go to a fancy running store and get 3-figure customized running shoes or else they will have to just give up and stick to the couch. Poor people can do this!


There were a lot of good tips in the OP, for sure. But I will never weight out any super-low cal stuff like spinach or mustard. I estimate on low calorie veggies and condiments. I think playing it smart makes more sense than playing it OCD.

If a food listed in MFP only has a volume measurement and it’s not a free pouring liquid, ignore it, go the label or the producer’s website and find the calories by weight. If this fails, consider not eating that food. I’m not kidding.

I'll be eager to see how long one can last under a "diet" that follows a rule like this.

First of all, your food label is not 100% accurate. So go ahead, find the grams, weigh the food, but know that even that is purely an estimate. Your 103g of an apple or 40g of oatmeal is not precise even with a precise weight.

I mean, I weigh stuff. I use my food scale multiple times a day. I certainly use it for mayo, peanut butter, and things like oats, rice, etc.

But the line between accuracy and insanity is pretty clear to me.

Live the healthiest life you can enjoy - that's the motto I've lived with, and as you can see from my ticker, I've been pretty successful. Many of us cannot enjoy a life that involves choosing not to eat foods because they're not listed in the MFP database in grams. Damn.

:drinker:

I know this is an old post, but thank you so much for posting it - very informative!