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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?

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  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    edited October 2017
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    Put a vegetable on the scale before chopping, that's less than 5 seconds. I can't see how that is time consuming or annoying unless you have your scale stashed away somewhere in the furthest crevices of your cupboard.
    Pretty much everything else about cooking is more time consuming than placing an ingredient on the scale.

    Sorry it's hard for you to understand but I'm not doing something annoying just because you think it shouldn't be annoying. Especially since I've already proven it's not necessary for me.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    earlnabby wrote: »
    earlnabby wrote: »
    Speziface wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think it's weird how people default to the weighing as unhealthy and not the logging itself. I don't think either is unhealthy, but I do think GottaBurnEmAll has a point that it must be unfamiliarity with the scale as a common tool or, in some cases, with cooking. I find weighing is more convenient than cups and do it for many things when not logging (or counting calories), and used a scale for baking pre weight loss. (I actually had put it in the back of a closet after I stopped baking regularly and then when I decided to lose weight didn't use it and then much later decided to drag it out and found it made logging easier.)

    For me, since I chop and so on when cooking, adding a step of placing a bowl on the scale and putting things in before tossing them in a pan is easy, almost not noticeable as extra work. Logging IS much more burdensome to me, but in part it's because it (or something similar and in my mind equally burdensome, like writing down everything I eat in a spreadsheet) makes me stay mindful when I want to not think about eating choices.

    And whether I weigh, log, or use some other tool, the fact is that for me if I don't stay mindful, I start gaining weight and can easily slip back into emotional eating too.

    I use this same approach. It was also part of how I worked as a chef. You want to be portioning correctly for consistency and cost control. Easy enough to transition to doing it at home.

    This is interesting. I watch cooking shows on TV and you rarely see those chefs using any type of measurement and I don't think I've ever seen them use a scale.

    I've seen it quite frequently. Good Eats immediately comes to mind; so does just about any European cook.

    Never watched Good Eats but I have seen several European chef hosted shows (US shows hosted by Europeans) and while they usually give ingredients in grams I've never seen one weigh anything. They also eyeball it on the shows.

    That's because it is all pre-weighed off camera. If the recipe ingredients are given in weights, be assured that the chef/host cooks by weight.

    So even when they chop it on camera and throw it in a pot you think they are using camera tricks to weigh it off camera?

    Nope. You are talking cooking where ingredients frequently do not get weighed. Baking is a completely different story and everything gets weighed on the shows, just off camera. When the host dumps flour from a bag, it is just for show. No camera tricks needed, they have several of the same dish in varying steps of completion and just take out the one that pertains to the steps they are currently talking about.

    Oh I never watch baking shows.

    The thing with cooking savoury meals is you often don't need to measure and weigh ingredients. If I'm not counting calories, I cook almost completely by feel. It generally means I never make the same meal the same way twice, but they always taste good. It's just years of experience, both personal and professional, where I know what works and what doesn't. But weighing and measuring, when I am calorie counting, adds very little time and trouble and the thing is, I still cook by feel - I weigh the amount that I would put in anyway, rather than putting in a specific amount by weight, if that makes sense.

    Makes total sense to me, as this is exactly how I do it.

    I never measured before weight loss for cooking (vs. baking -- as I said before, I even put my scale away at first since I stopped baking when I decided to focus on weight loss). But I find the most time consuming part of cooking to be chopping, and it doesn't add anything for me to the burden to put what I chop on the scale.

    Creating recipes I do find burdensome, but I usually don't when I'm logging. I note what my weights are on an envelope when cooking and then eventually log it (or 1/4 of it or whatever proportion of the dish it's in I eat).
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    How is it annoying exactly? Seriously. You're just putting it on something else instead of on the table. You can even put your chopping board on top of the scale, making it have literally no extra effort than if you weren't doing it.

    My entire kitchen island top is a butcher block cutting board. Putting it on a scale would be a little tough. It's annoying and that's enough for me. I don't log my food or count calories so why exactly would I want to weigh ingredients anyway?

    But how is it annoying? It takes so little time and effort compared to any other aspect of cooking.
  • Fyreside
    Fyreside Posts: 444 Member
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    jdlobb wrote: »
    I put a mixing bowl on my scale and tare the weight. Then i record all my ingredients as I add them, tareing after each one.

    Ditto. Too easy.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    Fyreside wrote: »
    jdlobb wrote: »
    I put a mixing bowl on my scale and tare the weight. Then i record all my ingredients as I add them, tareing after each one.

    Ditto. Too easy.

    Maybe that's the problem. It was too easy. I only like things that are exactly easy enough. :p
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    I just don't understand how the weighing bit is a big deal. I get why logging might be, and why there might be better approaches for an individual than counting calories, of course. But I simply don't get why the weighing piece would add burden if you are already right there chopping, and thus I wonder if there's an assumption that it works differently than it really does (at least, than it really does for me), that we are pre logging or trying to get a particular number or anything like that.

    But that's not a criticism, it's entirely possible that someone could be bothered by something and I could be unable to see how. I find the scale piece fun, although when not logging I often don't weigh (but I sometimes do).

    Anyway, this goes back to how this subthread started, with someone insisting that weighing is neurotic. I personally find logging itself burdensome (not so burdensome that I won't do it at times and I liked it when losing), but switching to weighing instead of estimating or using cups made it easier and less burdensome for me, not harder, so I find it weird and annoying when someone insists that the weighing piece is somehow neurotic but logging itself totally normal.

    Need2, I am not referring to you, I know you are talking only about yourself and not calling anyone else neurotic.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    earlnabby wrote: »
    earlnabby wrote: »
    Speziface wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think it's weird how people default to the weighing as unhealthy and not the logging itself. I don't think either is unhealthy, but I do think GottaBurnEmAll has a point that it must be unfamiliarity with the scale as a common tool or, in some cases, with cooking. I find weighing is more convenient than cups and do it for many things when not logging (or counting calories), and used a scale for baking pre weight loss. (I actually had put it in the back of a closet after I stopped baking regularly and then when I decided to lose weight didn't use it and then much later decided to drag it out and found it made logging easier.)

    For me, since I chop and so on when cooking, adding a step of placing a bowl on the scale and putting things in before tossing them in a pan is easy, almost not noticeable as extra work. Logging IS much more burdensome to me, but in part it's because it (or something similar and in my mind equally burdensome, like writing down everything I eat in a spreadsheet) makes me stay mindful when I want to not think about eating choices.

    And whether I weigh, log, or use some other tool, the fact is that for me if I don't stay mindful, I start gaining weight and can easily slip back into emotional eating too.

    I use this same approach. It was also part of how I worked as a chef. You want to be portioning correctly for consistency and cost control. Easy enough to transition to doing it at home.

    This is interesting. I watch cooking shows on TV and you rarely see those chefs using any type of measurement and I don't think I've ever seen them use a scale.

    I've seen it quite frequently. Good Eats immediately comes to mind; so does just about any European cook.

    Never watched Good Eats but I have seen several European chef hosted shows (US shows hosted by Europeans) and while they usually give ingredients in grams I've never seen one weigh anything. They also eyeball it on the shows.

    That's because it is all pre-weighed off camera. If the recipe ingredients are given in weights, be assured that the chef/host cooks by weight.

    So even when they chop it on camera and throw it in a pot you think they are using camera tricks to weigh it off camera?

    Nope. You are talking cooking where ingredients frequently do not get weighed. Baking is a completely different story and everything gets weighed on the shows, just off camera. When the host dumps flour from a bag, it is just for show. No camera tricks needed, they have several of the same dish in varying steps of completion and just take out the one that pertains to the steps they are currently talking about.

    Oh I never watch baking shows.

    And I don't watch cooking shows ;)

    (the "dish in many stages" thing holds true to all cooking/baking shows. They prep for hours and do many takes just to present the 20-25 minutes we see)
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    jdlobb wrote: »
    Put a vegetable on the scale before chopping, that's less than 5 seconds. I can't see how that is time consuming or annoying unless you have your scale stashed away somewhere in the furthest crevices of your cupboard.
    Pretty much everything else about cooking is more time consuming than placing an ingredient on the scale.

    I put a mixing bowl on my scale and tare the weight. Then i record all my ingredients as I add them, tareing after each one.

    My scale goes up to 10 kg. so I can do that with any vessel except my crock pot (too heavy).
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,060 Member
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    earlnabby wrote: »
    earlnabby wrote: »
    earlnabby wrote: »
    Speziface wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think it's weird how people default to the weighing as unhealthy and not the logging itself. I don't think either is unhealthy, but I do think GottaBurnEmAll has a point that it must be unfamiliarity with the scale as a common tool or, in some cases, with cooking. I find weighing is more convenient than cups and do it for many things when not logging (or counting calories), and used a scale for baking pre weight loss. (I actually had put it in the back of a closet after I stopped baking regularly and then when I decided to lose weight didn't use it and then much later decided to drag it out and found it made logging easier.)

    For me, since I chop and so on when cooking, adding a step of placing a bowl on the scale and putting things in before tossing them in a pan is easy, almost not noticeable as extra work. Logging IS much more burdensome to me, but in part it's because it (or something similar and in my mind equally burdensome, like writing down everything I eat in a spreadsheet) makes me stay mindful when I want to not think about eating choices.

    And whether I weigh, log, or use some other tool, the fact is that for me if I don't stay mindful, I start gaining weight and can easily slip back into emotional eating too.

    I use this same approach. It was also part of how I worked as a chef. You want to be portioning correctly for consistency and cost control. Easy enough to transition to doing it at home.

    This is interesting. I watch cooking shows on TV and you rarely see those chefs using any type of measurement and I don't think I've ever seen them use a scale.

    I've seen it quite frequently. Good Eats immediately comes to mind; so does just about any European cook.

    Never watched Good Eats but I have seen several European chef hosted shows (US shows hosted by Europeans) and while they usually give ingredients in grams I've never seen one weigh anything. They also eyeball it on the shows.

    That's because it is all pre-weighed off camera. If the recipe ingredients are given in weights, be assured that the chef/host cooks by weight.

    So even when they chop it on camera and throw it in a pot you think they are using camera tricks to weigh it off camera?

    Nope. You are talking cooking where ingredients frequently do not get weighed. Baking is a completely different story and everything gets weighed on the shows, just off camera. When the host dumps flour from a bag, it is just for show. No camera tricks needed, they have several of the same dish in varying steps of completion and just take out the one that pertains to the steps they are currently talking about.

    Oh I never watch baking shows.

    And I don't watch cooking shows ;)

    (the "dish in many stages" thing holds true to all cooking/baking shows. They prep for hours and do many takes just to present the 20-25 minutes we see)

    And who knows what it really tastes like in cooking shows, right? Unless it's one of those "whose tastes better" contest type shows. It's TV. ::shrug::

    They could put in salt instead of sugar and I'd be none the wiser.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    This whole turn of topic reminds me of the Monty Python skit where a variety of people (including singing vikings) repeatedly attempt to compel an old "lady" (Graham Chapman in drag) into ordering a dish heavily involving Spam, and she keeps shrieking "I don't like Spam!!!" :D

    "Scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale scale, scale...lovely scale! Wonderful scale!"

    It is rather bizarre. But kind of interesting too. I feel now that I want to know why everyone is so annoyed by my annoyance as much as they want to know why I'm annoyed. :lol:
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