Piling on the pounds. Please recommend food scales.

It's not your age. I'm 49.

It's good that you are active. Now you need to start counting calories and logging them in MFP so you know exactly how much you are eating. A scale is a very helpful tool, and I use one. I log everything that goes in my mouth, including drinks other than water. You are likely eating far more than you realize. Enter your numbers into MFP and have it set you up with how many calories a day you should eat to lose weight. You will also want to log your exercise calories, because the way MFP is set up, you are supposed to eat those back so you won't create too much of a deficit.

Good luck!

ETA: I found a cheap food scale on ebay here in the states. I imagine you can find the same in the UK. Just about any kind will suffice.

I have found the using MFP has made a huge difference. My husband and I are fairly active people, we are black belts in tae kwon do. We even did P90x a couple of times. We toned ourselves up, but never really lost the weight that we were suppose to because we didn't watch what we ate.

I never really ate large portions - but I'm a snacker. I eat lots of in between things. That is were I pack on the weight. Putting in your food helps you take a notice of what you are really eating and when. Drinking water is huge too. I do not weigh my food. I figure if I am losing weight we approximation I am doing ok. If I stall out then I will start looking at my portions.

We started watching in May and then it morphed into MFP. We got a fitbit (pedometer that talks to MFP) We also use Aria Scale this is a body scale. I'm not the best eater really but we are changing that. I eat a burger when I can and a flatout pizza with turkey pepperoni when I need it. But I keep under my calories.

I do exercise a bit. We walk almost ever night about 2 miles. I use the Daily Burn videos online 3+ times weekly and we try to get in 3 times a week a tae kwon do class. (But we usually do the teaching so we just wear our fitbit to track our movements sometimes not much exercise.)

I am 5'5" and started at 232 in May. I'm 42
Today I am at 173 so MFP is really working for me. Keep at it, it really works if you really work at it. : )

You can get one for around $10 at Walmart. After the age of 40, our metabolism slows and we need to eat 100 calories per day less for every decade than when we were in our 20s and 30s - for example, if we ate 2000 calories then,. in our 40s we need no more than 1900, 1800 in our 50s, etc. Or we can exercise more. Portion control is the biggest factor in weight. Restaurants serve 2-3 times more than we should eat at one meal. MFP is a wonderful tool to help you in weight loss. I recommend you eat as you currently do and track for a few days just to get an idea on how many calories your eating now and then go from there.

Any digital ones. I got these, from Asda, for £9: http://direct.asda.com/Salter-Black-Flat-Kitchen-Scales-Flat/001493996,default,pd.html They do the job.