Weighing Food...

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caitlynforkzz
caitlynforkzz Posts: 10 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I just purchased two scales that I am dreading to use.. a weight scale and a food scale.
How have you weighed your food? What foods do you normally weigh?
I found recently when adding what I eat it is hard to figure out exactly what portions, so I decided to attempt to use a scale to measure out various portions (veggies, fruit, protein, etc) I just don't know how to use one!! Nor have I ever used one. Just looking for some tips :)

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  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
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    1. take food. 2. put on scale. ;)

    But for real i weigh everything INCLUDING condiments...especially even. Hitting the start button to reset it to 0 between each condiment is a life saver.
  • caitlynforkzz
    caitlynforkzz Posts: 10 Member
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    Ha Ha!! I have that much figured out ;)
    I never even thought of condiments!!
  • arobey11
    arobey11 Posts: 87 Member
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    I weigh absolutely everything except for some liquids (coconut milk when I'm using it in a recipe, wine if I'm having a glass, etc. - in those cases I use a measuring cup). I find entries that have the option of 1g as a serving size and add however many grams I'm eating. It's important to cross-check the entries from the database with reputable information (such as the USDA information available online) to ensure accuracy, especially for things that are naturally higher calorie. It isn't such a big deal if you're off by 30% on cauliflower, however being off by 30% on butter could eat into your deficit, that kind of thing.

    After a while you get used to knowing what items you can eat at a higher volume for the calorie content, or vice versa, and plan your portion sizes around that knowledge. For example, if I know I need to eat a high-protein dinner because I haven't eaten much protein that day, I'll have a larger portion of chicken breast at dinner and my sides will be a bit lower calorie, such as cauliflower (which I love) and baked sweet potato. If I'm having that for dinner anyway and my calories are a bit low overall for the day, I may add 14g of cheese on top of the cauliflower, or 5g of butter (or both!).

    I definitely recommend weighing in grams, because that's how you'll get the highest degree of accuracy.

    Weighing your foods can seem daunting at first, but once you get into the swing of things, it opens up a lot of information to you that can help you make the best choices for yourself.

    My favorite part of weighing vs. using measuring cups for solids is how much more ice cream I can have in the evenings (128g vs 1 cup - there's a difference!!) than I thought. :)
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
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    caitlynforkzz wrote: »
    Ha Ha!! I have that much figured out ;)
    I never even thought of condiments!!

    Condiments add up stupid fast. Definatly weigh them. Even ketchup adds up it made me sad. Definatly weigh peanut butter if you use it its heart breaking
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    1. take food. 2. put on scale. ;)

    But for real i weigh everything INCLUDING condiments...especially even. Hitting the start button to reset it to 0 between each condiment is a life saver.

    I took your advice and now I have milk all over the floor.....
  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
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    Food scale for solids, cups for liquids.

    Once you have a database of foods you regularly eat, it gets quicker.

    Try to use USDA info if you can, and always verify with the package (if it has info) or the USDA website. Every entry in the database here is user-generated, so they can be inaccurate. Once in a while, someone always is baffled because coffee has 25g of sugar in it. No, it does not. They just picked a user-generated entry in which the person added their sugar, but did not specify in the title.

    There are stickies on top of this forum for how to log accurately. They are very helpful.
  • Heather4448
    Heather4448 Posts: 908 Member
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    I'm going to shop for food scales tonight. I find it difficult to accurately log all my food, though I do my best.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    1. Put bowl on scale.
    2. Zero scale (using "zero" or "tare" button - if it doesn't have one, turn it off and on again, it should zero itself)
    3. Put food in bowl. If there are several ingredients, note the weight of each one and zero before adding the next.
    4. Log
    5. Eat

    You'll get there.
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
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    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    1. take food. 2. put on scale. ;)

    But for real i weigh everything INCLUDING condiments...especially even. Hitting the start button to reset it to 0 between each condiment is a life saver.

    I took your advice and now I have milk all over the floor.....

    hahahah I guess i missed a step in my sarcasm :p
  • Dee_D33
    Dee_D33 Posts: 106 Member
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    I don't really know how to explain how to weigh something, as it's pretty simple. I weigh everything, including most of my liquids because I'm just comfortable doing it. When you go to select your entry make sure your selecting the correct state of the food (frozen, raw, cooked). Also, make sure your selecting the correct unit, such as grams vs. ounces. What I usually do to make the math easier in MFP is select 100g and change the servings to reflect the weight of my food. For example, if I have 80 grams of broccoli, I'd select 100g and put my servings at .8. If I had 130g, I would still select 100g, but put my servings at 1.3. Make sense?
  • o2bmaggie
    o2bmaggie Posts: 3 Member
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    It has been my experience that weighing helps when making homemade recipes. Once the calories in the ingredients have been calculated in a recipe, it's easy to figure how many calories in a particular serving size. Then family favorites can be adjusted with lower calorie substitutions (if necessary). Yes, at first it's rather involved, but in the long run it pays off as you're not guessing about what your calorie intake is. Nothing makes one more heartsick to than to estimate ones calories faithfully, log faithfully and not lose anything... only to find out what you really were eating was far more than you estimated. In the end... time lost. The measuring thing is something I can't make my mother understand as she's frustrated that nothing's coming off.
  • caitlynforkzz
    caitlynforkzz Posts: 10 Member
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    Thanks everyone!! I didn't know what to expect but I want accuracy rather than guessing and being either way too high or way too low. :) I look forward to using it!

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