When should you start weighing your food?

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natashab61
natashab61 Posts: 103 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have never weighed my food and jut eyeball it.
Is that not the right thing to do in weight loss. I always try and round up when entering it into MFP. Sometimes I don't. But any suggestions?
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Replies

  • thereshegoesagain
    thereshegoesagain Posts: 1,056 Member
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    You need to get a scale and use it. It is too easy to be off when estimating portion sizes.
  • FeraFilia
    FeraFilia Posts: 4,664 Member
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    I still have 100+ to lose, and I've used my scale pretty much for all of my weight loss, except the very beginning before I had it. (I've lost about 50 so far)
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
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    I initially lost about ten pounds eating "intuitively" because I wasn't ready to calorie count right away. When that stalled, I started weighing and logging properly and the loss immediately started up again. If you're not losing doing it that way, time to weigh and measure.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    day one.
  • hollyrayburn
    hollyrayburn Posts: 905 Member
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    Yesterday.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    day 1
  • henk_nbg
    henk_nbg Posts: 12 Member
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    right from the start!
  • dragon_girl26
    dragon_girl26 Posts: 2,187 Member
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    I love my food scale. The sooner you start to use it, you may discover the same thing. Weighing food means it takes the guesswork out so your calorie counting is more accurate. Plus, it's a lot less dishes! (measuring cups, etc..)
    So, yeah, I'd highly recommend using it right away.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    I started pretty much from the beginning.

    Some people do fine without a food scale, but I'm firmly in the food scale camp.

  • lthames0810
    lthames0810 Posts: 722 Member
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    I started out not weighing food and I lost weight just fine. Even faster than predicted. It took a lot of convincing from this community before I tried it. It turned out that my estimates of what I was eating were too high. I was able to eat more and still lose weight at a satisfactory rate when I began to weigh my food.

    Thanks, you guys!
  • dragon_girl26
    dragon_girl26 Posts: 2,187 Member
    edited January 2017
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    Well, and despite what I said above, it seems pertinent to point out that if you don't weigh food, it doesn't mean that you're doing things wrong. Some people never use a food scale to lose weight and they get by just fine.
    I would say that if you decide that you absolutely don't want to use one right away, try it without if you wish. As long as you're still losing weight at the expected rate, good deal. If you hit a plateau (meaning 4 or more weeks without any movement on the scale), then the food scale would be the first thing to try.

  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    You'll never regret using one. You might regret not using one sooner.
  • leanjogreen18
    leanjogreen18 Posts: 2,492 Member
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    The first 6 months (100lbs to lose) I didn't weigh my food. First 3 months I lost 2lbs per week. Month 4 I lost a little over a 1lb a week and months 5-6 I lost 1/2 lb a week.

    Eyeballing is ok if you have a big enough (safe) deficit BUT generally we are poor at judging as you can see from the slowing of my loss, diet fatigue sets in and the calories creep up.

    Get a scale, it better to be accurate.
  • SadDolt
    SadDolt Posts: 173 Member
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    i just ordered a food scale because i'm sick of guessing when it comes to home cooked meals
  • indiacaitlin
    indiacaitlin Posts: 691 Member
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    Definitely invest in a scale and get weighing everything out! You'll be surprised how easy it is to overeat if you're not accurately weighing things out.
  • vikinglander
    vikinglander Posts: 1,547 Member
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    Ummm...the first rainy Thursday in March!

    Seriously, the only way to really know your accurate calorie intake is to weigh and measure everything. Three points I'd like to make:

    1) The entries in the MFP database are NOT always accurate. Learn to verify them against a couple of different sources. If you Google "nutrition food counts" you'll find a bunch of them, including the USDA's database. After a while you'll get to know when the MFP entry is off-base...if you see 'ground beef 90% - 1 oz. - 400 calories', you'll just know it's wrong.

    2) After weighing and measuring everything for a while, you'll get to know what 6 ounces of chicken breast looks like, or a cup of almond milk, or a 105 gram banana as opposed to a 157 gram banana. At this point, I can pretty consistently reach into a jar of nuts and pull out an even ounce, within a gram or two. And I can tell you within a few grams about how much that braised boneless beef short rib weighs on your restaurant plate.

    3) Another thing I have found extremely helpful is to bring home any takeout food I buy and deconstruct it and weigh everything. I have done this with grilled chicken salads from this great Greek place near my office. I brought home the same salad I order for lunch, maybe 3 or 4 times, and weighed the chicken, the cucumber, the tomato, the carrot, the green pepper, etc. So now I know that on average that salad is about 520 calories, with 2 Tbsp of Caesar dressing. I have done the same thing with Chipotle bowls and salads (although they have their nutrition counts online, but every server will give you different sized portions!) as well as numerous other takeout dishes, like Chinese food, etc.

    So I would say that in the beginning, you should weigh and measure everything, until you get good enough at this to "eyeball it". That is, if you're not losing or losing fast enough...if what you're doing is working for you, kudos to you!
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    If you get stuck and can't lose weight despite thinking you have cut calories, weigh. If you're losing without weighing, I see no reason to start.

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