Weighing food

Workout4Health
Workout4Health Posts: 447 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
How exactly does this work? I want to make sure I'm getting an accurate calorie count. I usually just go by servings or what the label says. But people say the way to do it right is weigh it. How do you know how many calories there are based on the weight? Do you ever bring it to a restaurant or someone's home?

Replies

  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    I go by the nutrition label. It usually says per serving/ number of grams.
  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    Find a scale that measures in multiple units (ounces, grams, mL, whatever) and that also has a tare (zero) function.

    Put your plate on the scale, press the tare button to zero it, then put your food on the plate.

    Then look at the nutrition label.

    foodsmarts4.gif

    See how the serving size is in grams as well as oz? Compare that against what your scale says.
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  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    On the nutritional label it usually tells you how many grams a serving should weigh.

    skippy_peanutbutter_reducedcreamy_nutrition_label.jpg
    notice next to where it says 2tbsp it also says 36 grams.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,724 Member
    I do not take my food scale out and about with me, but I do have multiple scales in convenient locations around the house, and also have one at my desk at work to weigh certain items on the sneak sneak

    I've used some tips from this link to select the right entries from the database, but mostly yeah, as already mentioned, the food label is a great place to start. But you'd have to be careful about just weighing an entire cooked meal/recipe and hoping it matches an entry in the database. For this you'd need to weigh all of *your* ingredients to get an accurate number. Anyway I think she covers that in the link too:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide
  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    If you're out or eating something that has no label, how do you calculate the exact calories?

    I search for what I'm eating, pick the option with the highest calories, and use a portion size about 1.25 of what my best guess is.
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  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    If you're out or eating something that has no label, how do you calculate the exact calories?

    If you're at a chain restaurant, the information is usually on their website.
    If you're at a local restaurant then take your best guess. As long as it doesn't happen everyday, then it should be fine to just play the guessing game (high guesses are generally best).
  • roanokejoe49
    roanokejoe49 Posts: 820 Member
    If you're out or eating something that has no label, how do you calculate the exact calories?

    Eating out is a problem, dude. You have no idea what is in your food, especially if you are eating at a local place. At least fast food and chain stores give you a calorie count on their food. When eating out, be sensible, and don't do it often. Eat a portion of protein the size of your fist, eat a butt ton of veggies with no more than 2 TBLS of dressing. Lay off the breads and desserts.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    The package will almost always tell you how many grams are in a serving. Unless you have the math skills of a fourth grader, it will be simple to figure out. Some people (including my sister), have the math skills of a fourth grader and need help figuring it out. There are instructions online for those people. But if you can't do basic math and know someone who can, have them show you. Unless you're my sister, having someone show you once should be enough. :)

    When I weigh (which I don't very often!), I use a postage scale I already had. Other people get food scales. I'm not sure how they're different.

    Cooking becomes an issue. It is great for people who measure everything out, but if you're the kind of cook who just pours what you pour and shakes what you shake, you have to guess.

    Eating out? It's going to be an estimate...but it is all estimates, really, so there's that. :)
  • Kevalicious99
    Kevalicious99 Posts: 1,131 Member
    Ok .. here is the deal. Buy a digital scale .. with grams. Anything else is not precise .. and weigh your food.

    Use the nutritional information on the package to determine the number of calories for your weigh.

    For things that do not have nutritional labels .. like fruit and raw veggies etc just use the MFP database as those are not usually high calorie food items anyways .. so a bit of error is not going to be an issue.

    Do not use cups for measuring things (except liquids in appropriate measuring devices) .. or servings. Period.

    Go by the weight always.

    I know some people may not like that idea .. but they are always the ones saying that they are not losing cause of measuring errors.

    Here is a YouTube video as to why you should do as above and no other method. End of Story.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY
  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    But this could be a problem if you don't know all the ingredients?

    I mean, what are you ordering?

    If you got pad thai, find an option for pad thai in there. If you got a chicken piccata, find a chicken piccata. If you got a buffalo chicken sandwich, find one of those.

    If you're at the French Laundry, quick add 3000 calories and start again tomorrow.
  • laurie04427
    laurie04427 Posts: 421 Member
    I was trying to find this link because someone asked this a while back and someone had an awesome post. Check this out:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide?page=1
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  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    If you're out or eating something that has no label, how do you calculate the exact calories?

    If you're at a chain restaurant, the information is usually on their website.
    If you're at a local restaurant then take your best guess. As long as it doesn't happen everyday, then it should be fine to just play the guessing game (high guesses are generally best).

    Eh, I travel a lot for work - I'm home for 5 consecutive days this week. That hasn't happened since June I think. Most of my meals are in restaurants. I do okay. It's usually not too hard to find an analog for what's on the menu. in the database.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,724 Member
    Eating a lot of food prepared by somebody else with no knowledge of what went into it has unfortunately been the source of under logging calories in some cases I've seen. I mean other than maybe seeing the food swimming in oil/butter sometimes, can you really tell the difference between a dish with one tablespoon of oil vs four. That sort of thing.

    I've seen where people would rather eat at a food chain due to having the nutritional info online (still an estimate! The chef may or may not have weighed every ingredient!), or some may choose to help more with the cooking or enlist the help of the cook for logging ingredients and recipes
  • wagglesworth
    wagglesworth Posts: 53 Member
    If you can't find the item your looking for in the "food" section of MFP, and you're at a restaurant, try asking your serving person if they would have the nutritional information available for whatever it is you would like to order. Or, try looking it up on line first. I've been able to do that with several restaurants.
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  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member

    Eating out is a problem, dude. You have no idea what is in your food, especially if you are eating at a local place. At least fast food and chain stores give you a calorie count on their food. When eating out, be sensible, and don't do it often. Eat a portion of protein the size of your fist, eat a butt ton of veggies with no more than 2 TBLS of dressing. Lay off the breads and desserts.


    Right. Yea but I was also talking about family get togethers. It's not going to be easy to get an accurate measure at the restaurant, although I only go once in a while if it's an event. I don't think it's realistic to avoid every single event just cuz I can't weigh my food. I'm not talking about everyday though, just those specific times.

    If you can't be accurate, the best you can do is pick the highest calorie database entry, overestimate your portion size (studies have shown people consistently underestimate their portion sizes, so consciously overestimating often cancels that out), and hope for the best.

    I've been logging for about a year, and I prepare probably 10-15% of my meals. The rest are restaurants and at other people's homes. It's possible.
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  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,724 Member
    I think you have some choices to make. If you're losing weight at an acceptable pace, keep it up! I wouldn't rock the boat too much unless it's warranted. Anything you come up with for your get togethers would be an estimate , so personally I don't really see the food scale helping. Unless you want to come at it another way - as you log the foods you've weighed and prepared or otherwise logged, you can better estimate the calories in each meal by saying well, that looks like 100g of rice, etc etc. But ultimately it's still an estimate. The question is what impact might this have on your overall diet?
  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member

    I mean, what are you ordering?

    If you got pad thai, find an option for pad thai in there. If you got a chicken piccata, find a chicken piccata. If you got a buffalo chicken sandwich, find one of those.

    If you're at the French Laundry, quick add 3000 calories and start again tomorrow.

    Well Lasagna tonight. I didn't order it, my aunt made it. There was some olive oil in it, so I have no idea.

    Ok, so search for Lasagna and pick one. I'd probably pick the Carrabba's. You probably have an idea of the size of a restaurant portion of lasagna - do you think you ate that much? Or one and a half? or two?

    Take that amount and multiply it by 1.5
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  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    If you're out or eating something that has no label, how do you calculate the exact calories?

    If you're at a chain restaurant, the information is usually on their website.
    If you're at a local restaurant then take your best guess. As long as it doesn't happen everyday, then it should be fine to just play the guessing game (high guesses are generally best).

    Eh, I travel a lot for work - I'm home for 5 consecutive days this week. That hasn't happened since June I think. Most of my meals are in restaurants. I do okay. It's usually not too hard to find an analog for what's on the menu. in the database.

    I guess it depends on what you order when you eat out. Some of the items I tend to order at restaurants are very high in calories and would certainly make progress hard if I was eating that way everyday. Not that it isn't possible to enjoy eating out and lose weight. I eat out a lot, but mostly at places where I can get the nutrition information from their website. And by "guessing game" I meant pulling an entry from the data base with the same name/best bet is to go with the higher calorie entries when you don't know.
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  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    I guess it depends on what you order when you eat out. Some of the items I tend to order at restaurants are very high in calories and would certainly make progress hard if I was eating that way everyday. Not that it isn't possible to enjoy eating out and lose weight. I eat out a lot, but mostly at places where I can get the nutrition information from their website. And by "guessing game" I meant pulling an entry from the data base with the same name/best bet is to go with the higher calorie entries when you don't know.

    Yeah, that's the hard part. I like a beer with dinner and am VERY good at justifying things I want to myself, which is how I wound up here in the first place, haha. Since I started tracking I've probably eaten my bodyweight several times over in grilled chicken caesar salads...
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,724 Member
    The question is what impact might this have on your overall diet?

    I'm not sure it does, but you see people on here all the time constantly saying, ''You have to measure, weight, and know exactly how much you are getting.''

    Well , you've lost plenty of weight already so you know a thing or two about a process that works

    Figuring out exactly how many calories you're eating is an excellent way to break through a weight loss prolonged stall. It's just next to impossible to do this if someone else prepares most of your food and doesn't or can't communicate how many calories are in it. If you're still able to create 1000 calorie deficits , even if you were off by 700 you'd still lose weight
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