Why is everyone so scared of weighing their food?

PS: Re baking: In all my life I've never seen a recipe with the ingredients given in weights, although that makes a great deal of sense. My mother taught me to run flour through a sifter, then carefully spoon it into measuring cups in order not to compact it and then use a straight edge of some sort to level it off. Conversely, brown sugar is supposed to be pressed into the measuring cup (although how hard to compact it is somewhat arbitrary and a matter of experience.) I learn something everyday!

Conversely, I've never seen a baking recipe that wasn't given in weights, except for the liquid volume portion of course. You've just confirmed that using volume measures for solids just don't make sense.

Baking is the only time I'll weigh stuff, because in that case it does make a difference to the outcome.

But then I'm an engineer, so I use what's practical and useful, only when it's practical and useful

Maybe the lack of weights for baking is an American thing? English recipe books always seem to have weights for ingredients.

That said, I've never seen any of the posters on here jump on someone if they say they don't weight for personal reasons.

Are you reading a different forum site?

Lots of judgemental garbage when someone says no, because...

Judgmental garbage? Really? Do tell... I only bring up food scales when people are in a plateau, or gaining weight and don't know the reason. When they are having trouble and ASKING for help. And I've never seen anyone given a hard time about not using a scale because of behavioral issues.

Yeah, same here.

I do actually want to start weighing foods, but I'm not sure what kind of scale to buy.

the motto of this forum is (or at lease one of them) "you don't weigh your food, you deserve to fail".

We should have a list of official rules and if people are not following all of them they should be removed from the forums or have their accouts deleted. :happy: Mixing weighers and non weighers one one site, how crazy is that!?

And be certain to only offer support and encouragement to people who are following the exact same program as yourself. Everyone else deserves to fail.

Only partially joking. But it seems to feel like that to more than a few posters. Personally, I really don't care how you are trying to lose weight. Most people here have probably tried a few things before giving this a try. Some will move on from here to another plan that will work for them when this fails for them.

yeah, sometimes it does feel that way on this forum...or on any other fitness/weight loss discussion groups...have you been on bodybuilding.com? oh man...

Pffft. I don't think it's true at all. People just recommend to use a scale when someone comes posting that they're not losing weight... Bottom line is most people have no idea how much they are eating unless they log everything and weigh their food. But obviously if they overestimate everything, they'll lose weight just fine... I just think most people have no estimating skills at all.

I wonder if it's mostly Americans and Canadians that are resistant to weighing their food since it's otherwise not done.

What I'd observe isn't so much resistance to weighing food, but many people not seeing the point.

For me, I end up with such large deficits after a decent training session then I'm unable to consume the volumes. There is absolutely no value to me in adding hassle.

What I find interesting is that for many threads there is an instant do you weigh... response, without any real exploration of the context. For many people weighing and measuring just isn't practical.

Of course the same thing applies in fitness threads when some respondents just weigh in regardless of the question asked and give a very simplistic answer. In the absence of context, mostly it's meaningless.

the motto of this forum is (or at lease one of them) "you don't weigh your food, you deserve to fail".

I should have added this as another reason I haven't been weighing my food: Contrariness in response to the aggressive accusations in other forum threads, "you don't weigh your food, you're eating more than you think you are."

I also had a huge deficit on Saturday after a 4 hour bike ride with hill repeats that flamed my legs. The next day I had gained three pounds from fluid retention, seemingly wiping out two weeks worth of weight loss. Had I whined about it in a forum post, I have no doubt I would have been called out for not weighing my food.

You call that an aggressive accusation? Oh boy -

I wonder if it's mostly Americans and Canadians that are resistant to weighing their food since it's otherwise not done.

What I'd observe isn't so much resistance to weighing food, but many people not seeing the point.

For me, I end up with such large deficits after a decent training session then I'm unable to consume the volumes. There is absolutely no value to me in adding hassle.

What I find interesting is that for many threads there is an instant do you weigh... response, without any real exploration of the context. For many people weighing and measuring just isn't practical.

Of course the same thing applies in fitness threads when some respondents just weigh in regardless of the question asked and give a very simplistic answer. In the absence of context, mostly it's meaningless.

the motto of this forum is (or at lease one of them) "you don't weigh your food, you deserve to fail".

I should have added this as another reason I haven't been weighing my food: Contrariness in response to the aggressive accusations in other forum threads, "you don't weigh your food, you're eating more than you think you are."

I also had a huge deficit on Saturday after a 4 hour bike ride with hill repeats that flamed my legs. The next day I had gained three pounds from fluid retention, seemingly wiping out two weeks worth of weight loss. Had I whined about it in a forum post, I have no doubt I would have been called out for not weighing my food.

You call that an aggressive accusation? Oh boy -

Well, I'm oversensitive (just ask my husband) but I thought it was aggresive in the context of the thread as I recall it.

When a user asks for advice when they're not getting the results they think they should, the first thing that happens is all the jaded oldtimers jump in with the food weighing thing without ever looking at their diary or getting any details about the poster. It could be one or more of many different things going wrong. But whatever, It's always the food weighing that is declared to be the culprit.