Weighting everything to the ounce. So discouraging.

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  • RoseTheWarrior
    RoseTheWarrior Posts: 2,035 Member
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    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 :smiley:
  • rsleighty
    rsleighty Posts: 214 Member
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    xbowhunter wrote: »
    I don't own a food scale. I will probably get beat up for that... LOL

    I estimate the best that I can & it's working. I have 5lbs more to go to get to my goal. If I happen to stall I may have to spring for one but for now I refuse to weigh my food... :)

    This is how I feel about it too. As my weight drops and my calorie goal gets smaller I may have to get one. For now measuring works fine.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
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    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.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    dcdcdcdenisedcdcdc wrote: »
    to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what I would weigh. my vegis? my protein bar? my salad dressing? my prepackaged light string cheese? okay nuts. I could use a measuring cups for nuts. there's nothing I would weigh. what are you eating that you have to weigh? vegis? would you weigh vegis?

    mostly meat for me...I mean you log 4 ounces of cooked chicken breast...how do you know you logged 4 ounces of cooked chicken breast if you didn't weigh it. I never weighed out any prepackaged food like my slice of bread or my string cheese or anything...but yeah, bulk stuff like meat, pasta, nuts, my peanut butter, etc.
  • shadowfax_c11
    shadowfax_c11 Posts: 1,942 Member
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    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.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
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    xbowhunter wrote: »
    I don't own a food scale. I will probably get beat up for that... LOL

    I estimate the best that I can & it's working. I have 5lbs more to go to get to my goal. If I happen to stall I may have to spring for one but for now I refuse to weigh my food... :)

    If it makes you feel better, I only bought one because I desired greater accuracy in baking. Bread is really finicky and I take pride in what I make. Sheer curiosity got me to start weighing my food, but mostly I just like the smug feeling I get when portion sizes are within 0.1 oz of what I estimated.

  • shadowfax_c11
    shadowfax_c11 Posts: 1,942 Member
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    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.
  • Livgetfit
    Livgetfit Posts: 352 Member
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  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
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    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.
  • heatherlewisis
    heatherlewisis Posts: 118 Member
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    dcdcdcdenisedcdcdc wrote: »
    to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what I would weigh. my vegis? my protein bar? my salad dressing? my prepackaged light string cheese? okay nuts. I could use a measuring cups for nuts. there's nothing I would weigh. what are you eating that you have to weigh? vegis? would you weigh vegis?

    I weigh beans, shredded cheese before I put it in my omelette, meat, salad dressing, peanut butter, yogurt, my avocado before I put it on my sandwich, chips so I know I'm eating a correct portion, pretty much anything... I use grams sometimes and ounces other times... Grams aren't any more accurate than ounces (most kitchen scales measure to a 10th of an ounce)
    just preference. To each their own!
  • BurnWithBarn2015
    BurnWithBarn2015 Posts: 1,026 Member
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    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.

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  • trjjoy
    trjjoy Posts: 666 Member
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    I weigh everything. Alles.
  • aleencarraec
    aleencarraec Posts: 25 Member
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    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.
  • bpetrosky
    bpetrosky Posts: 3,911 Member
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    I don't understand the OPs objection. Weighing food is a way for me to monitor my calories and macros. Theres a small investment of time as I'm doing food prep, but it's just part of my day. For food that I don't prepare for myself, I do the best guess I can. I may have a non-logging day for travel or vacations if it's appropriate.

    I don't get why the OP would come into a forum for a site dedicated to assisting people in managing their weight through food logging just to say she doesn't like the method of doing just that. If it isn't your kind of thing, go find something that is.
  • cbelc2
    cbelc2 Posts: 762 Member
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    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.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I don't think you HAVE to weigh food though. But then yeah... remove 200 calories from your goal and don't eat exercise calories to make up for the inaccuracies. And adjust as you go.

    Personally though, I'd rather be as accurate as possible, although obviously activity will ALWAYS be a total guess.
  • dcdcdcdenisedcdcdc
    dcdcdcdenisedcdcdc Posts: 13 Member
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    Thanks for all the help and information! I think I have it figured out. I'm losing weight now, so I will stick to my plan, but if I ever feel stuck, I now realize this option could be very helpful!
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    Once you get used to it, it becomes second nature. And I do it to the gram, which is more precise than ounces.

    I do it to the gram too, and honestly...weighing is super easy. Just take your item, put on the food scale, record on MFP and voila. Takes like, ten seconds to do.
  • Shells918
    Shells918 Posts: 1,070 Member
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    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.
  • Gisel2015
    Gisel2015 Posts: 4,144 Member
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    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 :smiley:

    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. ;)

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