Logging accuracy, consistency, and you're probably eating more than you think.

Interesting to hit my goal I'll use this cheers

I only weigh those high calorie items like nuts, beans, and meats. I buy strawberries in the one pound containers and I eat half of them one day and the other half the next. Vegetables I kind of eye ball based on a cup size. I don't eat back exercise calories. I do try to limit my carbs to less than 30 per day and keep my calories around 1200. So far it's been working. But I don't want to get too obsessed with weighing things because them I'll feel like I'm on a diet and stop.

I'm new at this, but what I've been doing to try and make sure that I don't go over my calories is staying under on what I track and not using those extras that pop up when I do my light exercise. That way if by chance I have miscalculated something; because it's not always easy to know exactly how much something is (like meat weight in ounces), I have a little wiggle room to stay on track. 1900 calories didn't sound like a whole lot to work with when I started, but by being more aware of what I'm eating and cutting back on the things I should not have been eating quite so much of I'm already seeing results.

bwogilvie wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160

The dietitians underreported their energy intake obtained from the food records by an average of 223 +/- 116 kcal/day, which was not different from their energy expenditure. Participants in the control group, as hypothesized, significantly underreported their energy intake (429 +/- 142 kcal/day, P < .05).

Amen to this. In my first few weeks on MFP I was missing about 200 calories a day, between overestimating exercise and underestimating food. I had a 750 calorie deficit set, so I was still losing weight at a reasonable rate, but it did open my eyes to how easy it was to make a mistake. That now serves me in good stead, as I approach my goal weight and have a much smaller daily deficit planned.

What is a daily deficit plan?

Ive always been wary of this so I try to bump up the quantity a bit to guarrantee it. Also try n have an overall balanfed day of carbs, starches, fiber, protein, and minerals. Doesnt always happen though.

It doesn't help Food Corporations mark food so weirdly by not showing the total servings in a total of an item. But I learned to make my own food instead of eating junk.

justinkwright wrote: »

It doesn't help Food Corporations mark food so weirdly by not showing the total servings in a total of an item. But I learned to make my own food instead of eating junk.

They show the number of servings in packaged foods. Also, just because something is made by a corporation, does not make it junk.

I measure or weigh everything that goes into my mouth (even a piece of peppermint candy gets posted). That is about a tsp. of pure sugar (with a mint flavor).

I am pretty new to MFP and haven't invested in a food scale yet. I have noticed a mild plateau and I am in agreement that it is probably because I am just using measuring cups and counts for my logging. It may have been addressed already elsewhere, but does anyone have any recommendations for food scales? There are a couple $10 ones at my local Publix, but I'd rather have a scale known to be reliable so I don't have to make multiple purchases down the road because I bought cheap-os. Thanks for the help!

Kalikel wrote: »

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

Good point, especially these above. People often think they can look at someone's diary and tell how well they're logging based on the units of measure and such, but a reader has no way of knowing what they didn't log, which is probably a bigger source of error than using a cup measurement vs. a scale.

I just hate to say people think that using a food scale automatically means good logging, and that not using one automatically means bad.

You also can't assume that because an entry in someone's diary lists the measurement in cups that the person doesn't weigh their food. I use many entries from the database that are accurate (i.e., match the package label), but the person who created them used the volume measurement rather than the weight measurement when both are given on the package, e.g., 1/2 cup (113 g) for cottage cheese. I can weigh my cottage cheese and divide by the grams in a serving size to determine how much I'm serving myself, and still use that entry, and it doesn't mean I'm being inaccurate.

I used to do that. Pain in the rear! Grams into ounces, ounces into the serving size. Ugh.

If you manually enter the cottage cheese into "My Foods" with the grams, not only can you enter grams, but the option for One Gram will magically appear, so then you can just enter the 89 or whatever it is. And it will always be in My Foods.

I mention this only because I found it so helpful and not to criticize you!

Thank you!
I'll be making use of this feature from now on.

I'm not always the most diligent with weighing my foods. I sometimes accept what the label identifies as calories/serving even though it has been proven wrong.
I also guesstimate the cream in my morning coffee

HappyCampr1 wrote: »

carole4000 wrote: »

Plateau for quite sometime. Scales used accurately for everything this week. Thought average calories were less than 1500, so just shows how the food scales have helped with inconsistencies. This week actually shows an average of 1636 calories for the week and I lost all of 1/4lb though usually STS!?! Should I now aim for below 1500 to help me through this long plateau?

Just following up to see if you broke through your plateau.

Thank You! This info is helpful and something to remember.

Thanks for this! Im still establishing my plan and skills to follow through, but I have only ever gotten a 5 day streak because I skip the weekends when Im home and relaxing. I know I overeat on the weekends, and if I can be honest with myself maybe I will see how my weekend eating is sabotaging my 5 days of awesome efforts.

This is so true, but man does it ruffle the feathers around here! I see how much more lax I am over time, and as I continue to lose its really rather moot FOR A WHILE... but eventually everyone has to figure out a maintenance game, and these are the tricks we'll have to sharpen to figure out our ideal intake. I never understand why a person squawking their head off about stalling out won't make the effort to perform this sort of audit.