Logging food without weighing it...

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ashmurray1616
ashmurray1616 Posts: 7 Member
edited February 2015 in Health and Weight Loss
How do you guys weigh random foods you eat during the day? I know its best to log food by weight and not serving size and I typically prepare and weigh my food at home and bring it to work with me. But today I accidently dropped my food in the floor so I grabbed some broccoli and cheese soup from the deli close to my work. I logged it as Panera's broccoli and cheese soup at 1.5 cups. When little things like this happen, how does everyone go about logging your food without weighing it?

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  • jrline
    jrline Posts: 2,353 Member
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    I have never had a food scale. I just over estimate what I ate as well as underestimate exercise and I have lost 100lbs and maintained.
  • Ellaskat
    Ellaskat Posts: 386 Member
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    same for me jrline. this may not work for some people, but i've developed a pretty good sense of portion size. I also do not weigh foods. I use volume (cups, tsp, etc) and I know that is not accurate - but here's the thing - NONE OF THIS IS ACCURATE! that's because no one knows your exact metabolism - that's an estimate too. So, I do the best I can, try to overestimate food and underestimate exercise; Since Jan 10th I've lost 8 pounds, and I am only 9 pounds from my goal weight. it can work - you don't have to be so perfect:)
  • lizzocat
    lizzocat Posts: 356 Member
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    Any food I don't weigh, I overestimate, it seems to work
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
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    Once you've been weighing it long enough, you have a better idea. I do keep a food scale at work though. With something like soup though, measuring should work fine (since it's liquid). And, you're doing what I do when I'm not sure of the calorie content of something - I pick something similar from a chain restaurant and adjust based on the size.
  • kandeye
    kandeye Posts: 216 Member
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    Just guesstimate. One day of a guess isn't going to throw you off terribly. Like omma said, after awhile you get good at guessing. I got my scale 3 weeks ago and I can already guess most stuff I eat ( I still weigh it, but it's a fun game for me lol).
  • ashmurray1616
    ashmurray1616 Posts: 7 Member
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    I was just curious :) I also quick add 100-200 calories in the morning to help with any "missed calories". :wink:
  • sandryc79
    sandryc79 Posts: 250 Member
    edited February 2015
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    I work in insurance. When someone wants a quote but doesn't have a VIN # we estimate with the highest likely quote. I do the same when tracking food :)
  • futuremanda
    futuremanda Posts: 816 Member
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    What everyone else is saying. Basically, if you're eye balling or poorly measuring most things, then most things will be wrong, and there's more potential for you to be significantly off, day after day. You could easily be eating, say, 500 cals more every day than you think you are, just by being a bit off on each item.

    The more things you weigh and correctly measure, the less it will matter that sometimes you had to pick an equivalent item or take a guess, using a high guess to be safe. So it sounds to me like you're doing great!
  • jovalleau
    jovalleau Posts: 127 Member
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    If you have no information from which to base your numbers, you do have to guess. I like picking popular restaurant equivalents, as they tend to be overloaded with calories compared to home cooked meals (Applebee's has a chicken quesadilla app that's 1300 calories (for the whole "plate"). At work I can get them from our restaurant, but only the quesadilla portion, no sour cream, guac, etc. The 1300 calorie figure seems more than enough.

    My whole thing with calories is that I never weigh anything. Ever. I measure as close as possible based on serving size and # of servings for things I can make myself (rice, chicken breast, etc). I usually keep a pretty large recorded deficit, so a bit over here and there shouldn't make a huge difference.
  • terar21
    terar21 Posts: 523 Member
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    I tend to frequent local restaurants without nutritional info. Find chain restaurants that offers the same food item. If the numbers are all around the same amount generally, go with the highest one.

    As long as it's not a daily thing, you'll be fine being off a few hundred.

    If a meal is simple enough and you have the cooking reference, you can always recreate through ingredients. My limitations for this seems to be eggs and chicken lol.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    edited February 2015
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    BFDeal wrote: »
    My theory is everyone estimates and fudges the numbers but they just don't advertise it. I see people preach "weigh and measure EVERYTHING don't even lick a spoon or take an aspirin without weighing it" over and over. You'll see the same people saying "You can still go out to eat, just estimate" in another thread.

    Nope. I weigh and log everything that I eat when I can, and I estimate (by weight) when I cannot. I openly discuss and advertize this in threads. I actually JUST posted about this in another thread.

    Weigh and measure everything = accuracy.
    Estimate as best you can = compromise for situations in which you cannot weigh your food, and these situations should be periodic at most if accuracy is your goal.

    You really need to stop being a butthurt nuisance in every thread, please.
  • pjcfrancis
    pjcfrancis Posts: 121 Member
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    I'm not much into measuring, but I know that measuring is a good reality check. As long as the scale tells me I'm on the right track I'm happy. If I thought I was in a long term calorie deficit and I wasn't seeing changes then I'd work on improving my measurements to find the reason.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    edited February 2015
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    BFDeal wrote: »
    My theory is everyone estimates and fudges the numbers but they just don't advertise it. I see people preach "weigh and measure EVERYTHING don't even lick a spoon or take an aspirin without weighing it" over and over. You'll see the same people saying "You can still go out to eat, just estimate" in another thread.

    I'm one of 'those people' who weigh everything... at home. But what do you suggest, that we tell people not to bother with weighing their food because 10% of the time or less, they are not going to be able to weigh their food, so they should just not bother? I must miss the logic there. Or do we have to be recluses because we *gasp* like knowing how much we eat?

    OP - I weigh everything I can. If I can't, I just estimate... but with all the weighing I've done in the last 2 years, I'm getting pretty good at eyeballing (with a 20% margin of error or so... which does matter with a small deficit like mine, which is why I'm still weighing everything when I can).

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