No food scales

I could say alot about this topic, but I will try to keep it short (ish)

I dont count calories, or measure my food in any shape or form.

When I started my journey back in early July, I started to count calories. It didnt take long before I realised that this was nothing I could see myself doing for the rest of my life, or even for a short period - for many reasons.

Some reasons;

- It would take away my freedom to truly eat what I want.
- I wanted to see food as food, not see food as numbers.
- It would create an addiction to food - fuelled by emotions. Feeling guily about having too much to eat, too little to eat and etc.

Its just not a way I want to live.
So how am I doing with my weight loss project? Pretty good. Ive lost 13 kg in 13 weeks.


I do think its important though, for everyone that want to lose weight permanently, to think of it as a life long commitment. Its not something that you will do for x amount of time. So each and everyone should have a plan as to how to reach whatever goal you have, and then how maintain that goal.

And whatever means you are using to get there: Do it in a safe way, and dont make it harder than it has to be.

Life happens everyday. Dont use that as an excuse.

So seeing a few of your post, my comment is directed at the conglomeration of them all. The effort you put forth will drive the results. You may find it difficult to achieve certain goals without a bit more accuracy. People can easily lose weight without a scale. But getting something like abs, may be a lot more difficult. Ultimately, the path you chose, the exercise you do, and the calorie/macronutrient composition should all be in line with what you are trying to achieve. I recognize external factors come into play, but you cannot expect the results you want to achieve, if your plan is not supporting that. At the very least, you can give this method a try and evaluate your progress after 4-6 weeks. If at that point, you are not seeing the progress you are expecting, you can modify it.

SezxyStef wrote: »

yes people lose weight all the time without using a food scale...

even following IIFYM...

I own food scales and find it easier to be accurate and prefer the accuracy to the 5mins in my week I might lose by using a food scale.

Agree with all of this, but I think using my food scale saves me time in the kitchen vs. measuring cups, which I was using before. Less to wash, fewer steps when cooking, etc. I didn't really realize what a PITA estimating was until I didn't have to do it anymore.

Also agree with all the others who say it matters how big your deficit is. Small deficits require greater precision.

I hit 2 pounds a week pretty perfectly without scales. I think some people are good at eyeballing and some people just aren't...and you can't know which you are without trying. If you can't eyeball though, you have to be willing to switch courses.

I don't use a scale and I've lost 31 pounds in a about 4 months. I just log food the best I can and try to over estimate. It works for me. At least right now. I now have a better idea of how many calories are in what I eat and what is healthy and that's good enough right now.

I measure or weigh certain things...mostly because I cook a lot and there has to be some accuracy in preparing good food...I used a food scale and other measuring devices long before I started this little good livin' safari.

I have never been one to weigh out every little thing...I've never put a sandwich together and weighed each slice of bread or bothered with prepackaged single serving items, etc. Mostly I weigh and measure in order to follow a recipe and prepare a nice meal...otherwise my scale is used for calorie dense things that I'm bad at estimating...in maintenance I use my scale far less than when I was losing weight.

selina884 wrote: »

Anyone here used IIFYM and achieved their goals without every owning food scales?

Anyone still losing with no food scales?

I've lost 74 lbs - about 1/3 of that without scales. My loss rate has been virtually identical with scales v. without (for the same calories0. (I am very accurate at estimating weights - especially on calorie dense items, where the visual size corrsponds very closely to weight.)