How accurate are you?

"It's not wrong, it's just different" applies to a lot of things on the site. And of course you don't *have* to use a food scale. But people often are here asking why they've plateaued or can't seem to lose weight despite eating at or under their calorie goals. Before they try other, more drastic solutions, a $15 investment in a food scale and weighing food for a while can often be a fix. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

When I eat something I've not recorded before I weigh and measure accurately, but after that I just judge it based on whether it seems more or about the same as the first time.

I love roast root veg, the first time we chopped up the mixture of veg and laid it out on a tray to roast, every different veg was exactly weighed and calculated. Now we just chop up 'a tray full' and sometimes it's less and sometimes more. Doing that has never seemed to adversely affect the weight loss. I do something similar with a lot of foods now, especially recipes I make.

But then things like Rice or Pasta we used to just throw some in the water, before we were counting. Now we weigh that every time.

I think if I was having problems loosing weight I would get more careful in the weighing but controlling my calories based on just assuming the same calories for given foods each time seems to be working for now.

I eyeball everything, especially when it comes to fruit. The weight of fruit (and pretty much everything) changes between the time you buy it and when you eat it, due to dehydration, but the calories stay about the same.

I do not weigh, I have used measuring cups a couple of times to just get an idea of what a serving size looks like. I'm kinda saving weighing my food until I hit a plateau or something and feel the need to step it up a notch. I estimate and am never really surprised by what I see on the scale at the end of the week.

I weigh everything but I lost my first 30 pounds eyeballing and measuring. I'm sure I would have eventually plateaued had I not started, because I am bad at eyeballing.

But if I grab a banana while I'm out I just copy the last one. Between the exercise calories I leave on the table and the seasonings I always forget to log, I'm not 100% on point anyway.

Lourdesong wrote: »

I weigh everything except individual prepackaged items and eggs. Weighing is easy and fast and a habit, taring my scale to weigh a handful of spinach is easier and faster for me than the time it takes for me to even consider just eyeballing it.

I have had one egg that is the USDA-given 70 calories per large egg. Most are 75+. Small enough that it doesn't make much difference overall, but I like to know.

But what I would put down as the 3-cups-20-calorie serving of raw spinach has never been accurate. I have always under-eyeballed.

I weigh everything, included packed things (most of them tend to say things like "20gr" and then they're 25gr), except my Kit Kats... I love them more than that lol

I am very accurate, but I tend to measure by volume rather than weight. I eat a lot of veggies but try to limit my fruit. It's pretty clear to me what the sizes are for different fruits, so I don't feel the need to weight them every time. A lot of the fruits that I eat frequently (pom arils, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries) make more sense measured by volume than weight.

I never eat bananas...maybe that's the key issue.

It's possible to be fairly precise about tracking without driving yourself insane.

lgutches wrote: »

OP: I would love to know if these answers are representative of the MFP community or if the topic was of interest mostly to those who see weighing foods as priority. I do not mean any disrespect at all to those of you who have responded in the affirmative - and perhaps I am wrong - but my guess is that those who have responded to this post tend to be those who value weighing their food. The reason I bring this up is simply to take a little pressure of the OP, especially since she mentions that she doesn't weigh everything. One might get the impression that you're "doing it wrong" if you don't weigh your food, which - of course - isn't true. All that said, well done to all - we're all working hard, just doing it in different ways!

This is a good answer! I rarely weigh and occasionally measure, but have had success. Maybe it could have been faster, but it's painful for me to count calories anyway so I don't think it would be sustainable FOR ME. For others, it probably is. I underestimate a little on my burns, too, since they always seem high. I figure it all comes out in the wash, and that seems to be true because I have lost the weight.

Weigh everything, including gum and spices.

I weigh everything unless it is prepacked in individual servings by the manufacturer.

I think it is important to weight everything doesn't matter starchy or not, a calorie is calorie doesn't matter where it comes from.

I weigh protein and carbs, fruit if it's large. If I've had something before and have a sense of it, I use previous information. I look stuff up if I'm unfamiliar, read labels, scan bar codes on packaged goods.

To the person who questioned the motivation of those posting here: Of course the people that respond to this post are more likely weighing and measuring. Who else would have posted here? If you want to find out who isn't doing this post a topic about who doesn't weigh and measure.

I forgot to mention before that the food scale is more than just for calorie counting.

Since i got a food scale, my homemade bread has been exactly the same every single time i bake it. It's how i always did it in food service yet i never bothered to get a scale at home. There's a reason why big kitchens use scales. Every time i made it before i had to take notes on how tight i packed each ingredient into the cups and even then my notes were subjective. How tight is tightly packed or how loose is loosely packed. Then there's measuring spoons and if they are packed, level, rounded etc.

Being able to weigh the ingredients makes it easier to experiment with recipes too !!! Some things really do need to be adjusted on a percentage and the scale does that for me.