Weighing "everything"

hamelle2
hamelle2 Posts: 297 Member
edited December 19 in Health and Weight Loss
I am having great success with CICO and my food scale.
However I have a few nagging questions.
I buy individual servings of yogurt, cottage cheese and peanut butter. I haven't been weighing those. Do you actually dump those out and weigh them?
Someday I will reach the point of where every calorie will count...someday.
Please feel free to ask any of your food scale questions here if you'd like.
Thanks!
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Replies

  • bpetrosky
    bpetrosky Posts: 3,911 Member
    Food packaging usually has a certain degree of overfill over the stated 'net weight'. This is because the manufacturer would be liable if they were constantly underfilling the packages as that would be shortchanging people. A multiple serving package can balance that overfill out more.

    So if the serving size on the nutrition label says 28g the actual product weight in the container could be between 28g and 33g.

    If you do this for a while you can learn which products tend to be overfilled more than others. I get a certain snack bar that is almost always at least 3-4 grams heavier than the serving, and I just log it a 1.15 servings by default now.
  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    edited February 2019
    OP - peanut butter is one of my downfalls. A serving size is two level tbsp. Doubling that - which isn't much at all, gives me (did this in another thread) over 1000 calories per week.

    1 serving is 2 tbsps @380 calories. The difference visually between 2 tbsp and 4 tbs after being spread out is just...nothing at all. I was at least doubling, at least, several times a week - easily 1000+ calories that I wasn't accounting for each week.

    And that's just peanut butter - I also love olive oil lol. It's easy to account for my weight loss stalls when I start using a scale properly.

    edited for correction
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    OP - peanut butter is one of my downfalls. A serving size is two level tbsp. Doubling that - which isn't much at all, gives me (did this in another thread) over 1000 calories per week.

    1 serving is 2 tbsps @380 calories. The difference visually between 2 tbsp and 4 tbs after being spread out is just...nothing at all. I was at least doubling, at least, several times a week - easily 1000+ calories that I wasn't accounting for each week.

    And that's just peanut butter - I also love olive oil lol. It's easy to account for my weight loss stalls when I start using a scale properly.

    edited for correction

    I suspect the OP was referring to PB packaged like this:
    https://www.amazon.com/Smuckers-Peanut-Butter-0-75-Ounce/dp/B004G0UL36

    Which is depressingly small :( but at least measured for you.
  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    pinuplove wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    OP - peanut butter is one of my downfalls. A serving size is two level tbsp. Doubling that - which isn't much at all, gives me (did this in another thread) over 1000 calories per week.

    1 serving is 2 tbsps @380 calories. The difference visually between 2 tbsp and 4 tbs after being spread out is just...nothing at all. I was at least doubling, at least, several times a week - easily 1000+ calories that I wasn't accounting for each week.

    And that's just peanut butter - I also love olive oil lol. It's easy to account for my weight loss stalls when I start using a scale properly.

    edited for correction

    I suspect the OP was referring to PB packaged like this:
    https://www.amazon.com/Smuckers-Peanut-Butter-0-75-Ounce/dp/B004G0UL36

    Which is depressingly small :( but at least measured for you.

    That's what I get for skimming posts :(

    Thanks for the correction pinuplove.
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    pinuplove wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    OP - peanut butter is one of my downfalls. A serving size is two level tbsp. Doubling that - which isn't much at all, gives me (did this in another thread) over 1000 calories per week.

    1 serving is 2 tbsps @380 calories. The difference visually between 2 tbsp and 4 tbs after being spread out is just...nothing at all. I was at least doubling, at least, several times a week - easily 1000+ calories that I wasn't accounting for each week.

    And that's just peanut butter - I also love olive oil lol. It's easy to account for my weight loss stalls when I start using a scale properly.

    edited for correction

    I suspect the OP was referring to PB packaged like this:
    https://www.amazon.com/Smuckers-Peanut-Butter-0-75-Ounce/dp/B004G0UL36

    Which is depressingly small :( but at least measured for you.

    That's what I get for skimming posts :(

    Thanks for the correction pinuplove.

    It's early :smiley:
  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    pinuplove wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    pinuplove wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    OP - peanut butter is one of my downfalls. A serving size is two level tbsp. Doubling that - which isn't much at all, gives me (did this in another thread) over 1000 calories per week.

    1 serving is 2 tbsps @380 calories. The difference visually between 2 tbsp and 4 tbs after being spread out is just...nothing at all. I was at least doubling, at least, several times a week - easily 1000+ calories that I wasn't accounting for each week.

    And that's just peanut butter - I also love olive oil lol. It's easy to account for my weight loss stalls when I start using a scale properly.

    edited for correction

    I suspect the OP was referring to PB packaged like this:
    https://www.amazon.com/Smuckers-Peanut-Butter-0-75-Ounce/dp/B004G0UL36

    Which is depressingly small :( but at least measured for you.

    That's what I get for skimming posts :(

    Thanks for the correction pinuplove.

    It's early :smiley:

    <3 and coffee!!
  • ChrysalisCove
    ChrysalisCove Posts: 975 Member
    I use a food scale for most things, but am not super strict with it. For example: I’ll weigh ingredients going into a recipe, but my current scale is too small to weigh out my portion on a plate to ensure it’s exactly 1/3 of the total dish. I’m likely over on some days, under on others.

    So far the weight is coming off just fine. If it stalls, I’ll bite the bullet and purchase a better scale.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    When I was tracking, I personally don't weigh anything pre-packaged. If I ever found myself not losing, I would just cut a portion size a bit down and that worked very well for me to get the scale moving again. If you want to give it a go to see if it makes a difference, sure.
  • lalalacroix
    lalalacroix Posts: 834 Member
    A couple years ago I had learned about how the prepackaged weights can vary a lot. So I spent a few months weighing literally everything from sliced bread to raw eggs. Items weren't just over the stated weight but sometimes under as well. My observation was that they truly did basically cancel each other out.

    So I really don't weigh my packaged items unless they contain multiple servings. If in the future I ever need to tighten my logging this will probably be the first to become more exact.
  • hamelle2
    hamelle2 Posts: 297 Member
    Thank you all. I'm losing fine right now. When the time comes I will do as you have suggested.
    Yes..its JIF on the go. 250 calories in a very little tub. I hate measuring peanut butter. :)
  • getrealgirl
    getrealgirl Posts: 201 Member
    Bread- package usually gives calories per slice of bread and then how many grams that slice is suppose to weigh. There may be 2 pieces in a loaf that actually weigh that. So...I weigh every piece and then figure calories out mathematically based on how much each slice weighs. Total pain and that in itself keeps me from eating bread often. The ends (even though they look small) are usually the heaviest and higher in calories.
  • admaarie
    admaarie Posts: 4,297 Member
    When I first started using a food scale I weighed EVERYTHING. I mean every single thing. Lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, onions.. in hindsight it became just way too obsessive for me. Like another posted mentioned I’m a lot more relaxed with tracking & don’t feel the need to weigh out every single thing anymore and still obtain results. For me this works better.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    hamelle2 wrote: »
    I buy individual servings of yogurt, cottage cheese and peanut butter. I haven't been weighing those. Do you actually dump those out and weigh them?

    No, I never once weighed a single-serving packaged item. I don't actually eat many foods that fall into that category, however. If I'd had issues losing maybe I would have started, but there's so much else that's an estimate (any meal I don't make myself, exercise calories, guessing at the right entry to use for certain cuts of meat, etc.) that it just didn't seem worth it to add the extra time, especially since if I eat a single serving it's usually when I'm not at home.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,979 Member
    edited February 2019
    hamelle2 wrote: »
    All of your feedback has been so helpful and I thank you. I believe alot of "weigh everything" advice is geared toward those who are not losing steadily or are very close to goal. I've always been a rule follower. :)

    ^ Indeed. It's important when it becomes important. I lose on about 200 calorie deficit so I did weigh packaged foods when losing. Before I did that, I could easily overdo by about 50-100 calories some days; so 25-50% of my deficit.

    At maintenance now, it's not as important.
  • HeliumIsNoble
    HeliumIsNoble Posts: 1,213 Member
    edited February 2019
    To add to what everyone else as said, a trial period of weighing and logging every flipping thing gives you first-hand experience of what things you personally should prioritise weighing in future. For example, I know that I should weigh peanut butter. I've also learned that if I can't be bothered to weigh everything, I can eyeball how much margarine I use pretty well. Oh, and I can estimate the volume of the tomatoes, and skip entering the lettuce at all.
  • Mistizoom
    Mistizoom Posts: 578 Member
    I don't, as calorie counts are inherently not exact anyway, but I do account for approximate serving sizes. Let's say I eat a 250 g can of soup for lunch, and it says serving size is 110 g, servings per container are "approximately 2". I will use the correct multiplier to get the right amount for the entire can. I do buy one brand that has both "one serving" and "entire can" listed, which is nice.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
    If you are losing weight to your satisfaction then I would say that it's not necessary just yet. As your margin of error becomes smaller as you lose more weight, then those sorts of things really start to matter.
  • durhammfp
    durhammfp Posts: 494 Member
    edited February 2019
    Maxematics wrote: »
    I once weighed a granola bar that was 75 calories more than it was supposed to be. At the time I was running a 250 daily deficit and something like that can easily cancel it out.

    For some reason, the box of rolled oats I buy states that one serving is 1/2 cup or 40 grams. Anytime I weigh out a 1/2 cup, however, it's actually 60 grams.

  • ChelzFit
    ChelzFit Posts: 292 Member
    I have been maintaining for years and I still weigh my meat, avocado, some starchy veggies (carrots, potatoes, corn), bread, cereal, and my oats. I don't weigh anything packaged and I have maintained my weight. It became to obsessive for me to everything and I had to take a step back.
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