How accurately do you track?

bear2303
bear2303 Posts: 251 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Just curious to know how other MFPrs use this handy little tool. I would say I track with like 80-90% accuracy.

I started out tracking really really accurately but as time went on I got a little lazier and a little less accurate. If i make something from scratch I usually just take my best guess and choose something that looks like it has similar caloric value.

For me, tracking every single bite every day was daunting so I do my best but I also give myself some grace. Curious as to what works for you all?
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Replies

  • yelliezx
    yelliezx Posts: 633 Member
    I'd say 90% but who knows! I weigh the majority of things I eat and add recipes to MFP when I'm cooking so I'd like to say I'm pretty accurate. Sometimes you just have to guess though i.e. going out to a restaurant that isn't a chain! Hey, whatever works, right?!
  • bear2303
    bear2303 Posts: 251 Member
    Terytha wrote: »
    90%. I don't weigh slices of bread or when I take quick swallows of milk from the jug. Also restaurant stuff is obviously a total guess.

    I weigh absolutely everything else.

    Im surprised that you say you only are 90% accurate if you weigh everything else! I would assume that with just those two exception that you would be closer to like 95% accurate. lol maybe I'm being too generous on my estimation for myself
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
    edited September 2019
    As accurately as possible, considering kitchen scales, or body scales for that matter, are not 100% accurate without being calibrated for total accuracy. Nothing is perfect. I don’t worry much about it, as I’m losing weight.
  • waveringparagon
    waveringparagon Posts: 18 Member
    I am trying to be as accurate as possible with the reality that going out to eat is a crap shoot on real reflection. I usually opt on the most negative when in those situations as it makes me think carefully about whatever else I eat.
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 7,078 Member
    I'm a geek about tracking, I even log spices. If I don't know the calories in a meal out I'll just quick add or pick something similar.
  • betsymoomoo
    betsymoomoo Posts: 71 Member
    Honestly, when I'm not logging 100% honestly, I tend to over eat. Eyeballing serving sizes is my downfall. Of course I'm usually logging at about 95% accuracy because sometimes I just don't want to fully enter my recipe.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    I’m pretty sure, given the caveats as in the post above about the accuracy of scales that I know down to the last 10-20 calories what I’ve ingested every day. That 10-20 would possibly be rounding up/down issues of the tenths of a gram from my food scale.

    I weigh absolutely everything! Every thing!
  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
    I weigh everything I eat. If I dont, I'm only sabotaging myself.
  • tuckerrj
    tuckerrj Posts: 1,453 Member
    Don't know how to calculate it. But except for the one or two meals I eat "out" each week, I weigh & measure everything that goes in my mouth that has calories. I time and log all my exercise activity, too. So recording 19 out of 21 meals a week accurately calculates to about 95% accuracy.
  • kristen8000
    kristen8000 Posts: 747 Member
    I'd say 90%. We eat at home MOST of the time and when I'm home and weigh and log. I bring food to work and only eat what I bring and plan to eat (will portion it at home). But if we eat out, there's some guestimating.

    I don't log seasonings, hot sauce, pickles, & mustard (unless I use a ton).
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    Eh, I guess I'd say 90% as well. I do a lot of logging an overestimation. I usually do it with fruit and vegetables, where I know 150g for a banana is probably as high as I've gotten when weighing them, so I just log that and not weigh the banana, knowing that if I do get one that's a bit over 150g, there were probably a few below that as well. I just go by the label on bread and tortillas after I weigh them a couple times to know they're not crazy off base, I just label my eggs as "large eggs". Since I live alone, I eat the whole portion of things, so usually I'll just divide portions up with my eyeballs, as if one is a little large, the one that ended up a little small with make up for it.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    edited September 2019
    Things I do not track: Mustard, 0 cal. Zero colas, 0 cal. Salt, 0 cal.

    Some days, too often, I do not track much at all.
  • RealWorldStrengthLLC
    RealWorldStrengthLLC Posts: 552 Member
    When I was cutting 70lbs I was extremely accurate. When I went to maintenance/mini bulk I shot from the hip and did mental math for protein intake and that was it. I'm cutting 20ish lbs now and I'm fairly accurate but I wing it sometimes. Like my breakfast burrito this morning had way too much tortilla so I tore off a big chunk and logged 2/3 of the carbs in the burrito...stuff like that.
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
    edited September 2019
    I don’t weigh bread or packaged things and just use the servings on the package. I sometimes log my gummy vitamins and sometimes not. I do weigh and log everything else including lettuce and celery, fruits, etc.

    Most restaurants have calorie counts available now, thankfully, but the ones that don’t I give my best guess and overestimate to be on the safe side. I don’t eat at restaurants too often.

    90-95% accuracy i guess.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    I have a long standing history of tracking with neurotic accuracy for years. I technically don't need to track anymore since I can roughly eyeball macros and serving sizes with 90% accuracy, but I keep logging it anyway because neuroticism.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,464 Member
    I use restaurant numbers, which I know are not accurate, package numbers, which mfp members warn are not accurate. I weigh and measure individual servings and recipes. I made bread yesterday. I weighed everything in it, said it had 16 servings. I will not weigh each piece, but will use 1/16th of total recipe for each slice. How accurate is that?
  • ku140
    ku140 Posts: 65 Member
    Probably about 80% accuracy. I often do meal prepping, so I'll make a big batch of something with a lot of ingredients. Logging all those and then breaking it into serving sizes is cumbersome, so I don't worry too much about it being perfectly accurate. My issue is simply over-eating on snacks and eating when I'm not hungry, so logging what I eat is working, even if my serving sizes are not 100%
  • PumpkinAndPecans
    PumpkinAndPecans Posts: 42 Member
    When it is only me and grams are offered, I weigh the food at 100% accuracy. When it is family dinner time, I estimate the best that I can.
  • Ol_Griz
    Ol_Griz Posts: 4 Member
    I do my best to log as accurately as possible but the food values I find (I always take an average from MFP search suggestions if I don't have the exact info from food products) must be erroneous because after almost two months I am down 20 lbs. whereas my daily summary forecasts for even one month's work were well below my loss so far in nearly two. I don't cheat so it's either that or the exercise values I find (again, I use an average from my pedometer reading and MFP suggestion) are similarly out of whack. Or I have the dreaded slow metabolism? Frustrating because I would like more motivating progress, though I don't want to sound too worked up about it because it is still going in the right direction and this steady pace is perhaps more conducive to lifestyle change. Others find the same problem?
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    I would say I weigh about 90% of my food. If I'm portioning out a relatively low calorie dish, I might enter it in the recipe tracker but then use measuring cups to portion it out roughly equally, rather than weighing out the finished dish. I find that I'm not willing to take that much time away from my dinner to portion it by weight. I also don't weigh my prepackaged single serving items, or small amounts of low calorie veggies. Obviously, anything I didn't cook myself is also an estimate.

    However, I'm in maintenance, so I don't feel a need to be super strict. If I was still losing weight, I'd be much more consistent with weighing everything I could weigh.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    When I was logging, not accurate at all. I wouldn't weigh everything, I would skip items, I would skip meals, I would weigh things after cooking, quick add calories all the time. I used MFP as more of a food diary to be honest. And recently I use it to check in on meals or protein levels only. Obviously this method works well for me and it's not something that might work for others.
  • koalathebear
    koalathebear Posts: 236 Member
    Eating out, I guesstimate - usually erring on the side of the highest calorie option in MFP just to be safe.

    At home, when baking/doing my own cooking, I weigh everything.

    When eating something pre-prepared or snacks, I go by the serving suggestions on the package. I only tend to weigh if I eat something that's not in line with the serving suggestion. I'd say I have about 70 -80% fidelity these days. I was much more diligent in the early phases, but these days I am pretty good at not under-estimating what I'm eating.
  • cupcakesandproteinshakes
    cupcakesandproteinshakes Posts: 1,134 Member
    I’m not at all accurate. I guesstimate fruit and veg and only use a food scale for very high cal items.
    That said i rotate meals regularly and so I think they must fit within my calorie budget. I’ve been able to lose and maintain with this sloppy approach so I’m not stressing about it
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    I used to think that the all powerful forces of aversion and denial apply to other people but not to me.

    So, when I want to know the calories in something I weigh it.
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    I am just terrible with kitchen scales - especially if I cook not just for myself but for more people. Through MFP I have learned about "food stacking" and I try not to do that. Generally I try to have 4 or 5 ingredients on my plate which makes my logging somewhat easier. Over time I seem not to be able to account for 15 to 20 % of calories eaten - which has got to do with portion control. But I am working on it....
  • ElizabethKalmbach
    ElizabethKalmbach Posts: 1,415 Member
    I tend to be accurate with the number of calories in a recipe, but then I guestimate the proportion of that meal that I'm taking. It tends to even itself out over the course of a week, but may not be 100% on for the day I'm eating it.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    I loosely track, in my head! - 6th year at maintenance. If I see weight creep happen I go back to weighing and tracking more meticulously.

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