Wait.What? You even weigh THAT?
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If you're losing weight fine, I wouldn't worry about it. I've had bad experiences with packaged items weighing 20% more than what the package says though (sometimes it adds up to 100 calories!).
Yogurt is always less than what the package says, so I don't bother. Granola bars can be easily 3-4g more. I don't really use that much packaged food that 20 calories here and there is a big deal, but it adds up.
For ice cream, volume just doesn't work and I always weigh it.1 -
NewChapterInMyLife wrote: »I thought I did great with weighing my fruits, veggies and meats on my kitchen scale. I thought that was enough....but now I am reading how you should literally weigh everything from cereal to granola bars to the packaged foods that straight up TELL you how many calories in the package( such as yogurt or veggie packs or halo top ice cream or peanut butter)
I always just took it for face value that the packages or pints or whatnot don't lie.
Like, you weigh EVERYTHING? I understand the fruits, veggies and meat but EVERYTHING? And how do you sustain that? Have i been doing it wrong?
Depends...I never had a reason to weigh packaged foods. I never had a reason to strive for some kind of perfection...and even then, there is error. I never had issues losing weight just weighing calorie dense things and meat...I never weighed fruit or veg either. Personally, I think it's a bit over the top.6 -
JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.3
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NewChapterInMyLife wrote: »I wasn't weighing my PB but i will now. I just put it into a Tablespoon and used a knife to scrape the top off to make it " even" but apparently a big no no...lol
And then lick the knife clean.
I would weigh cereal too. Using a measuring cup gets you all kinds of funky serving sizes depending on the cereal.2 -
really, i weigh most things. the list of what i dont is far shorter than what i DO lol1 -
JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.
I respectfully disagree with the bolded part. Weighing food isn't necessary to create a deficit and lose weight. It's a helpful method for some people, but it's not the only method that works. I think the insistence that you HAVE to weigh your food can be really discouraging for people for whom weighing food isn't a good option.8 -
When I started weighing food a couple years ago, I weighed every thing. Now, I have noticed I am really good at judging non calorically dense food, such as broccoli and greens. I actually weighed out 20 serving a of broccoli the other day, ptr it in a bag, and put it in containers for prep and did not measure anything. Came out with 19 servings just by using my eyes and hands as an estimate.2
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JSYK, you have to weigh everything until you learn though. If it is 1 calorie or more you need to weigh it. The small stuff adds up and you need to figure out your system not rely on the systems of people posting here. I have a lot more calories to play around with than most people. There will come a day when I am down to the 250 deficit mark I will have to be super careful too but that day is not here yet.
Logging food is a tool some people find helpful for weight management.
Weighing food is a tool some people find helpful for weight management.
I agree that posts telling people they have to weigh absultely everything can discourage people just starting. I'd advise someone to do what they are comfortable with and see the results after a month or so. If they are losing as expected then it is fine. If you are not losing then mprove the accuracy of your logging.
In my household I need to log and weigh most things. My dh loses and maintains without doing any of that. My dd also manages her weight without logging or weighing food now but tracked intake for awhile while trying to gain although did not use a food scale. So I agree that different systems work for different people.5 -
I weigh a lot of my foods, but not prepackaged. When I was losing the bulk of the weight, I had a high enough deficit that little discrepancies in packaged foods or stuff prepared by someone else and/or served family style that I just ballparked worked out close enough to even I guess. So far in maintenance (about 6 or 7 weeks), I still do the same - weigh as much as I can. In the morning, I weigh 8 oz of yogurt and mix in exactly 24g of PB2. I weigh cereal to the gram to match the serving size on the box and I weigh apples or bananas. I usually weigh some chicken to take for lunch. I have stayed in a pretty tight window the last few weeks; maybe a 3 pound variance. I think accuracy has a lot to do with that.2
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Don't weigh a thing.
Managed to lose 1/2 of my body weight from 3/2012 to 3/2013. As it happens to over 80% of us, managed to gain back 60 and am in the process of getting back to where I was 5 years ago. Still not weighing, still managing to lose without weighing my food. I am pretty good at measuring and eyeballing. So far it works for me. I keep well within my calorie budget. Will not be so strict that I feel I have to weigh everything. If it comes to the point that I am not losing, and I am not at my goal weight I may rethink this. Not for everyone, I realize, but works for me.3 -
@alicedark
I don't think I said that. The OP has already chosen the weighing option so I was saying initially if you are going to do it to weigh everything before deciding what things like salad items you may want to eyeball. More to the point, I don't think it is wise to just copy what people are doing in this thread and their habits/systems before learning if it will work for them.
I am a huge advocate of individualized dieting. I meant only to suggest an initial period of education not a long-tem necessity unless the OP needs it.2 -
I honestly don't do it unless I'm not losing2
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I weigh almost everything, but that has more to do with the fact that I got fat eating huge amounts of food. I honestly had no idea what a proper portion of anything was or how many calories were in something. So weighing what I eat is quite an eye-opening and educational experience. There are plenty of people who lose just fine without weighing everything or anything. Some people do a great job of eating intuitively. I'm personally not one of them. I think it also depends on what you're eating. I have a big family and rarely eat things that are single serving.5
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I weigh, but not every time. Basically I weigh a new packaged food once to find out if it's consistent with the stated size on the package. Some are, some are very far off - for example my fancy bread weighs twice as much per slice as the package says.
Other things I weigh until I learn what a serving looks like, then every once in a while for calorie dense foods like peanut butter to be sure my estimate isn't creeping upward. My trick with peanut butter is to get it out of the jar using a teaspoon - even a level tablespoon weighs more than the supposed serving size, but a heaping teaspoon is about right.
Low calorie items like sticks of celery and cherry tomatoes, I don't weigh.1 -
The only thing I weigh consistently is nuts, when I’m prepping snack packs. Currently I don’t weigh other items, as I just don’t have the time and energy, and I just eyeball things based on ”I ate a third of that container” kind of reasoning. I don’t eat peanut butter, which most people in this thread apparently enjoy, so that’s not a weighing issue for me. If there’s a larger container of something but I eat all of it over the course of several days, I make sure my logging adds up to one full container.
For veggies, I completely eyeball, or use the general ”tomato, one whole” types of logging items. I might get back to weighing more food items and tightening my grip on my diet when my schedule winds down in a few weeks.1 -
I always weigh new packaged foods a few times. Some brands are pretty darn consistent (my tuna, for example, weighs almost exactly 140 grams every time I tried, so I log that as 140 grams every time). Once I've established what's consistent and what's not, I only weight things that aren't very consistent. Weetabix claims a certain weight per 2 wafers, but I've always found my wafers weigh more (or less if one crumbled off too much), and I usually use 3-4, so it's not insignificant. I weigh and go by gram.
ETA: for vegetable salads, if I'm not the one preparing it or if it has many ingredients and I'm in a hurry I don't weigh all ingredients. In that case, I just weigh the whole thing before dressing and log it as one vegetable. For example, mom makes a very simple but tasty salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and extra virgin sunflower oil. I portion out and weigh my salad, log it as tomatoes, add as much oil as my calories can handle for that meal, and I'm good to go.2 -
I weighed a chocolate toasted-coconut donut from Timmy’s( calorie dense),I was eating at home out of curiosity and it weighed over the nutrition facts weight- I did the math& added the extra calories on_I weigh mostly everything at home( not iceberg lettuce)-especially if calorie dense or I’m eating a packaged food on the regular-I had a bad experience not weighing rye bread_but got suspicious b/c the slices were so,big-and the nutrition facts went by 1 slice and it ended up weighing almost twice! Say salsa or yogurt etc I use measuring spoons/cups.1
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Interesting how many people don't weigh their yogurt. I always do. Then again, mine is whole fat (9% fat for Greek) so I do need to weigh it.1
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amusedmonkey wrote: »Interesting how many people don't weigh their yogurt. I always do. Then again, mine is whole fat (9% fat for Greek) so I do need to weigh it.
I weigh mine.1
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