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favoritenut
favoritenut Posts: 217 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, I weighed my chicken breast last night and it was almost 5-1/2oz, cooked it and now it weighs less than 3oz
My question, how do most of you weigh and record your food, before cook, or after. and when I do record it, do I record pre-cooked weight?

I know water cooks out of chicken but just confused as to how to record it...thanks! :smile:

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  • raholden88
    raholden88 Posts: 34
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    Recording chicken after it's cooked, as well as burgers, can be tricky and is usually frowned upon. Chicken loses mostly water, where as Beef loses water, fat, etc when cooked, so it's usually best to just count the raw weight before cooking. You don't lose much in terms of calories cooking something unless you really render it down. If you get a 6 oz burger and cook it down on the grill until its shrunk to being the size of a yo-yo instead of the size of a hockey puck, for example, then yea, you cooked out a ton of fat and water, and it'll be dry to the bone and weigh probably only 2 oz. Usually it's best to just go by precooked weight. Better to over estimate than underestimate.

    The opposite is true for pasta and rice, etc, which increases in weight and size obviously as it absorbs water. 1 cup cooked pasta could be 100 calories where as a cup dry could be 300 calories.
  • favoritenut
    favoritenut Posts: 217 Member
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    I'm just wondering about my protein intake, it doesn't lose protein right? so a 5.5oz chicken breast has about 28 grams of protein and when it cooks down to less than 3, it will still have the 28 grams of protein right??? I know that might be a dumb question, but I'm trying to get more protein so I'm really trying to watch that...
  • raholden88
    raholden88 Posts: 34
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    Most of the nutrition doesn't cook out, no. Very little is lost, like 5-10% max. It's mostly all water and very little fat, especially with chicken. 1 oz of water weighs 1.05 ounces about, so if you cook a 6 oz raw chicken breast down to 4 oz, it lost 2 oz of water and marginal fat and other parts. That's like an 1/8 a cup of water. You basically lose something like 2-3 grams of protein when you cook a pound of chicken down. So instead of 26 grams of protein it be 22-24 etc. It's a negligible amount in the long run. If you cook the chicken down in a pan you can always save the juices to make stocks with so you don't lose the added protein though.
  • favoritenut
    favoritenut Posts: 217 Member
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    that's good to know, I'm having a hard time getting in my protein and eating too many carbs. so I'm trying to switch that up..

    thank you!!!
  • mcspiffy88
    mcspiffy88 Posts: 90 Member
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    I think your answer was already answered but yea, if you want to get nutritional readings you should do so before cooking the stuff.

    Vitamins / fats / water is what is mostly lost during cooking, as far as your proteins and macronutrients go its pretty accurate.

    Dont worry too much about it, it can give you a bit of a headache which leads to bingeing :D
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    I weigh and log mine raw. You should be fine weighing and logging yours after cooking as long as you're choosing the appropriate entry in the database (baked, broiled, grilled, etc). It will be a little less accurate, though.
  • ottermotorcycle
    ottermotorcycle Posts: 654 Member
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    If you look in the database there are items in there that don't have asterisks(*) next to them. Those are the USDA ones and generally considered the most accurate around here. Usually there's a "raw" option, so if you are weighing raw, use that. (Something like "Chicken, breast - raw")

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