Weighting everything to the ounce. So discouraging.

I honestly don't understand people's issues with weighing/measuring and logging. This takes me maybe 5 minutes in an entire day. The app makes this so easy. For weighing, put your plate on the scale. Tare, add food. Tare, add food, tare add food. Eat. Once you have better visual ques to what an appropriate portion looks like, you can get rid of the scale if you don't want to use it, and bring it back out if your weight starts to creep up again.

Many years ago, I lost a bunch of weight. But then I stalled about 25 lbs from my ultimate goal. I know now it's because I did not have an awesome tool like this app. I weighed food, but had no easy way to get calorie info, or to track everything efficiently. I honestly KNOW now I'll reach my ultimate goal weight this time, thanks to my food scale and this app. I've lost 58 lbs since Sep 1/15, so I'm sure it works

I weigh things like meat, calorie dense things like peanut butter.

I don't weigh things like tubs of yogurt or bread slices.

But if I ran into trouble like a plateau I would then start weighing more.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

For what I weigh it's a minor inconvenience. Open peanut butter, place jar on scale instead of the bench, scrap out the peanut butter want. And I'm done.

Like added one step to the process.

GaleHawkins wrote: »

I eat out a couple times a day and it is hard to train kitchens to weight the food before they cook it and I do not do it at home in my case. I use bathroom scales that are great to giving the net results of my eating and moving after the fact which is my only interest.

Actually, speaking from 18 years of experience as a restaurant cook/prep-cook, restaurants do pretty much weigh everything out to either the ounce or the gram. They do so in order to keep their food cost under control. They are even more anal about alcohol pours. Trust me they won't be giving you extra anything, unless you treat your server badly.

Now they are not to likely to want to go and reweigh all of the ingredients to your personal specs since that puts a huge wrench in the line and they need to keep things going smoothly, especially if they are busy. But you should be able to ask about what their weights are on things or trust their online menu since it will be based of of the specific measurements of ingredients for a dish.


As for the OP's depression over weighing every ounce/gram of food. Yes it sounds pretty overwhelming at first but once you start doing it you will find that it really isn't that bad and in fact is extremely educational.

jkhoffe wrote: »

So i weight a lot but not all of my food. My question is, I make a lot of casserole dishes (or what we in Minnesota call "Hot Dish") I weigh everything that goes in, and create a recipe. The problem is determining how many servings are in it, and exactly how to measure the serving.....

Any suggestions there??

Weigh the dish empty (in grams). Make the casserole. Weight the entire thing(in grams). Subtract the empty weight of the dish. the resulting weight is your number of servings. Gives you 1 gram=1 serving=x calories. The weigh the portion you intend to eat and enter that number when you log it.

jkhoffe wrote: »

@seska422 - OMG you are Brilliant!!!!!!!

Thanks, but I read about how to do that on the MFP forums. I've learned so many solutions here.

You can also turn the thought around like
If i weigh everything and i know i have 500 calories left for the day i can eat a big bowl of ice cream for that.


I weigh everything
No spoons, no cups or serving sizes. Everything on the scale in grams, from herb, spices and yes i even calculate coffee and tea. Veggies, nuts candy crisps fruit EVERYTHING

I have 3 basic meals a day and most days i end up around 1400 calories with the meals and my evening big bowl of ( yes weighed out) popcorn.
I know that i have than 600 calories left to splurge around with ice or yogurt with frozen fruits etc. Not all days but a lot of days i know because i weigh everything how much i can eat and what i can eat. I make room for pizza, pasta, McDonalds and Starbucks

And i find it just a little thing to do to keep the weight i have now and to have lost in only 400 days

Discouraging?....nah no big deal at all. I am glad i do and did. My health and weight is more important...kudos to the people who can do it without weighing. I can not...as the past ( weight) has proven.
And that wont happen again....now i calculate it and i am responsible for every pound i would gain in the future.

I don't weigh my veggies, unless it's a high calorie one, and same with fruit. But I do weight meat by ounces, and cheese, dressings, and other high calorie food by grams. At first it's discouraging. Realizing I can only put 6.5g of cheese on half a tuna melt was sad the first time, but now I'm surprised by how much it actually really is. Just keep pushing through. If you let this discourage you, you're more susceptible to being discouraged by the scale.

Losing weight to get to a normal BMI is a privilege. It's not punishment. I am so happily moving toward my goal. Yes, I document and measure and weigh my food. I also feel like a secret agent, a super sleuth, when I do it!! It's a mind set. If you don't want to lose weight, you'll find some reason not to. If you really do, nothing will stand in your way.

The more I weigh and measure the faster I lose. Just put the food on the scale or in a cup. It takes 2 seconds and totally worth it.

I have a digital scale on my kitchen counter, it takes zero extra time or effort to press a button then put the food on the scale. Be sure to examine portions when you weight them, that's how you learn what an ounce of shredded cheese/meat/whatever looks like. I plan on continuing to count calories/portions after I've reached my goal until I'm absolutely convinced I've internalized portion sizes.

dcdcdcdenisedcdcdc wrote: »

I just read one blog. OMG I'm new to this forum. It's so shocking. Really, is that what you do? Weigh everything to the ounce? It's so discouraging. Diet.

So you have a choice. Continue on whatever diet you think works (which probably isn't since you've looked here), or take the steps you need to to be successful. Success isn't for everyone because they aren't WILLING to do what it takes for it to happen. If not, that's how life goes and you can either complain about non success or do what it takes to achieve it.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I always thought weighing everything sounded ridiculous, too. Until I tried it, got into the swing of it, and the kilos started coming off. Now I feel bereft because I'm on a big overseas trip and I left my scale at home. Weighing is seriously easy. When it comes to meat, I weigh it as I portion it out for freezing. Everything else I weigh in the process of cooking, which is so mindlessly easy that I don't even have to think about it anymore.

I have a food scale, I initially bought it about 3-4 months ago in the midst of a two-week "stall" (which wasn't even really a stall - just a brief pause). I barely use it - really just for when I'm eating particularly calorie-dense foods like Doritos or salted peanuts. Otherwise I eyeball, has worked for me.

Gisel2015 wrote: »

RoseTheWarrior wrote: »

I honestly don't understand people's issues with weighing/measuring and logging. This takes me maybe 5 minutes in an entire day. The app makes this so easy. For weighing, put your plate on the scale. Tare, add food. Tare, add food, tare add food. Eat. Once you have better visual ques to what an appropriate portion looks like, you can get rid of the scale if you don't want to use it, and bring it back out if your weight starts to creep up again.

Many years ago, I lost a bunch of weight. But then I stalled about 25 lbs from my ultimate goal. I know now it's because I did not have an awesome tool like this app. I weighed food, but had no easy way to get calorie info, or to track everything efficiently. I honestly KNOW now I'll reach my ultimate goal weight this time, thanks to my food scale and this app. I've lost 58 lbs since Sep 1/15, so I'm sure it works

Well it doesn't work that way for everybody. I have been doing it for almost 6 years and I still find it annoying and time consuming. I don't use the app, so I have to weight everything, log it in a piece of paper and then when I have the time enter it in the database. I am a PC person, I don't do apps.

And it takes more than 5 minutes in an entire day unless you eat only one meal. I cook three meals a day for me and my husband, so yes it is time consuming, especially if you have a lot of ingredients to weigh (big salads anyone?), or if you are preparing a big recipe, or if you are using new ingredients that you have to look for in the database (and sometimes are not there so you have to manually enter them).

So happy that it works fine for you, but I honestly don't understand why some people don't understand that others do have issues with weighing/measuring and logging.

I use a pc too and once you add recipes they are always there,as for entries you have to enter yourself.most of the time they will stay on your list of foods,especially if you eat those foods often so it takes less time that way.