Quick question about oranges.

2»

Replies

  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    What about a chicken breast on the bone. I have always just taken for granted that the edible part is the only information on the packaging/MFP. The packaging has a calorie count per serve, has it already taken into account that you are only eating the meat and no the bone.

    Personally it would depend on how you are cooking it to me...are you roasting it then cutting off a portion for yourself? With or without the skin? I would cut my portion, remove the skin and enter it as roasted chicken breast meat only - If I was making a recipe that involved cooking it with other things like in a crock pot I would enter it as raw chicken breast bone in skin removed or with skin (if I remove the skin I would do it before cooking).
  • WakkoW
    WakkoW Posts: 567 Member
    I think it is best to weigh all food for a certain period of time. This way you get a real feel for how big a small, medium or large orange really is.

    However, once you have a good eye for guesstimating certain items, like apples or oranges, it really is a PITA to weigh them all the time.
  • oSummerRaeo
    oSummerRaeo Posts: 39 Member
    Jeez. I did not mean to start a huge thing. Right now, I weigh all my food because I've found I need to *learn* what these portion sizes are supposed to look like. I like weighing things and being precise, and it's worked well for me so far. I feel like weighing things helps me; it's like training wheels until I've taught myself what portions for all different types of food look like. It may not work for everyone, and I'm sorry if anyone thought I was asking a stupid question, but this is getting a little silly. I'm happy if people have found success not weighing things. I'm just on a different path. Again, thanks for those who gave straightforward answers to my apparently obvious question. I appreciate it.
    i just want to reiterate that i wasn't 'mocking' or judging you, i just genuinely never heard of it before. seems like you know what you're doing and how you're achieving your goals, good luck!!!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    if you are trying to lose weight you need to be accurate with your calories and logging - I have seen so many posts of people not losing weight - the majority of the time it is due to inaccurate food logging due to not weighing and measuring your foods properly - bits of calories throughout the day can add up to many if you "wing it"

    If one is only trying to lose weight through controlling the input or by only doing small amounts of exercise then that level of accuracy is appropriate. If one is doing a reasonable amount of exercise, burning in the order of 600 or more cals per day then some approximation around the input just gets lost in the noise.

    Of course the other aspect is to broaden ones measure of success away from the scales towards body shape, fit, composition and sports performance.

    life is too short to weigh apple cores when an hours worth of fast paced running burns 800 calories anyway.
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    Jeez. I did not mean to start a huge thing. Right now, I weigh all my food because I've found I need to *learn* what these portion sizes are supposed to look like. I like weighing things and being precise, and it's worked well for me so far. I feel like weighing things helps me; it's like training wheels until I've taught myself what portions for all different types of food look like. It may not work for everyone, and I'm sorry if anyone thought I was asking a stupid question, but this is getting a little silly. I'm happy if people have found success not weighing things. I'm just on a different path. Again, thanks for those who gave straightforward answers to my apparently obvious question. I appreciate it.

    There are no stupid questions - as pointed out in this post you can enter fruits based on size - if you want to track your calories accurately then weighing is your best option. I agree that when we start this is the best way to learn portions sizes and calorie counts so we can make educated choices with our foods. When someone has been doing this for a long time they will tend to know what their calorie counts are for some foods and whether or not the difference is worth the effort of weighing it.

    If someone has success not weighing their foods - great - but if they stall at least the option is there. Also there are times when we will need to guess - it's not like I will be carrying my food scale to a family dinner or when I go out to eat so I can log my calories.
  • chelso0o
    chelso0o Posts: 366 Member
    I get what you are doing. I am just curious if anyone continues to weigh fruit after they are in maintenance? I think long term, it could get tedious. I'm NOT saying that what you are doing is wrong. I just found that being more relaxed about things has helped me stick with it better, and I've had more success.
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    I get what you are doing. I am just curious if anyone continues to weigh fruit after they are in maintenance? I think long term, it could get tedious. I'm NOT saying that what you are doing is wrong. I just found that being more relaxed about things has helped me stick with it better, and I've had more success.

    I have a while to go before maintenance - I like to be accurate with my logging because my goal is only 1320 per day plus some exercise calories if it's a day I do some exercise - If I am restricted I like to make sure I don't over and to be honest the peel from a grapfruit probably weighs more than the actual amount of fruit that I get out of it (I cut the peel away then cut out the wedges so there is a lot of it that goes in the trash)
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    I just found that being more relaxed about things has helped me stick with it better, and I've had more success.

    I'd agree with this. I really enjoy cooking, but I do it by eye. When I tried getting obsessive about measuring everything I found I actually didn't enjoy the process at all. Once I'd got my head round what a meal measured up to I was able to just chill and focus on improving my performance :)

    I recall a debate about weighing spices. As an experiment I tried it when I made a curry, worked out that I was spending a lot of time determining that the spices I added to the curry accounted for less than 5 calories once they were on the plate
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    I just found that being more relaxed about things has helped me stick with it better, and I've had more success.

    I'd agree with this. I really enjoy cooking, but I do it by eye. When I tried getting obsessive about measuring everything I found I actually didn't enjoy the process at all. Once I'd got my head round what a meal measured up to I was able to just chill and focus on improving my performance :)

    I recall a debate about weighing spices. As an experiment I tried it when I made a curry, worked out that I was spending a lot of time determining that the spices I added to the curry accounted for less than 5 calories once they were on the plate

    have to agree about the spices - except if it's adding sodium :ohwell:

    When I make things I make it the way I always do - I still measure and weigh it all so I can get a fairly accurate count per serving but I don't change the way I cook - once the calorie count is determined I decide how big my portions are. Surprisingly a lot of the things I always made were not bad on calories - it was always the portion sizes that got me. If I have to eat a smaller portion of say lasagne - I make sure I have something with it so I am satisfied by the end of my meal. I don't normally replace things in my diet I control how much of it I eat - I eat butter but I control how much
  • mailroomclerk
    mailroomclerk Posts: 70
    Personally, I like to peel the orange and then squeeze all the water out of them into a glass to make sure the weighing is accurate. I then drink the water and add it accordingly to MFP's daily water intake. I also own 9 cats.




    The scale is a good way to learn how much meat portions weigh, other than that I haven't used it much. It's kind of how you get used to knowing how much a cup is or a tablespoon. Measuring oranges though? Give -yourself- a break. Read a nutrition label and look at the size of the orange. If it's the size of a babies head and taste really bitter, you have a grapefruit ya sillybilly.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    I get what you are doing. I am just curious if anyone continues to weigh fruit after they are in maintenance? I think long term, it could get tedious. I'm NOT saying that what you are doing is wrong. I just found that being more relaxed about things has helped me stick with it better, and I've had more success.

    I've been in maintenance for 18 months and I still weigh everything except spinach and spices.

    It's become a habit. Probably no longer necessary but I don't mind it and it takes 2 seconds.
  • JG762
    JG762 Posts: 571 Member
    I don't get why everybody's getting their panties in a bunch over weighing some fruit.
    While I use average sizes for oranges and bananas I rarely if ever eat all of my daily calories, if I was limited and "needed" those calories I might weigh them just to make sure I was getting everything that I needed.
    Everybody approaches this differently and I try to approach everyday like I'm going to for the rest of my life, weighing fruit isn't something I plan on doing but if someone wants to weigh their fruit so be it.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    What about a chicken breast on the bone. I have always just taken for granted that the edible part is the only information on the packaging/MFP. The packaging has a calorie count per serve, has it already taken into account that you are only eating the meat and no the bone.

    If you chose an entry for boneless then you'd subtract the weight of the bone. If you chose an entry that says "bone-in" then I'd assume it includes the bone. I always choose the boneless entries and cut off the portion I'm eating and just weigh that.
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    Personally, I like to peel the orange and then squeeze all the water out of them into a glass to make sure the weighing is accurate. I then drink the water and add it accordingly to MFP's daily water intake. I also own 9 cats.




    The scale is a good way to learn how much meat portions weigh, other than that I haven't used it much. It's kind of how you get used to knowing how much a cup is or a tablespoon. Measuring oranges though? Give -yourself- a break. Read a nutrition label and look at the size of the orange. If it's the size of a babies head and taste really bitter, you have a grapefruit ya sillybilly.

    Just to make my point:

    1 whole grapefruit - 407 g with peel - 171 cals
    1 whole grapefruit peeled and sectioned - 153 g - 65 cals

    point made? that's 106 cals - thats a lot for one piece of fruit - and yes its the same grapefruit - I just ate it
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    Potatoes are a great example of why I weigh. They'll tell you that an average russett potato is 110 calories. But when I weigh mine they ALWAYS end up being nearer to 300 calories. And that is for what I would consider a small one. There's a lot of size variation.

    Or take Avocado-- depending on the size of the fruit and the size of the pit you could have a serious difference in calories between two average fruits.

Categories