Do you try to be overly accurate while logging food.
Djhfjy
Posts: 10 Member
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Replies
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Not sure at all what you mean by "overly accurate", but I am pretty sure I am a no by any practical definition. I weigh what I can and what is practical to weigh, but a lot of what I eat is prepared by others so it involves a lot of guessing. Sometimes I may be higher, sometimes I may be lower, but from personal experience it has worked out for me in the end.3
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There's no such thing as "overly accurate". You're either accurate or you're not, and there's no point in logging at all if you're not being accurate. You might as well be guessing at that point.5
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I try to be as accurate as I can. 95% of what I eat is measured in grams and prepared by me. Once in a while I eat at a restaurant and have to guess a bit.5
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I've gotten to be overly accurate as much as possible. I log my coffee, tea, and spices, though I don't think I have to be that detailed to lose weight, I'm just used to thinking of what I used at meals and logging.5
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right down to a piece of lettuce. it's helped me lose 77 lbs so far being this anal.4
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AllOutof_Bubblegum wrote: »There's no such thing as "overly accurate". You're either accurate or you're not, and there's no point in logging at all if you're not being accurate. You might as well be guessing at that point.
I disagree.
Of course what is 'overly accurate' will be a subjective and individual choice - nighthawk lost 77lb being anal to the last piece of lettuce, I lost 10 kg and maintained for 5 years being very approximate.
no, there isnt 2 polarised extremes: either accurate or not.
There is plenty of in between "accurate enough" which involves some weighing, some guessing, some law of averaging
Plenty of point in doing that if it works for you
As it does for me.
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No, not at all. The most I ever lost was on WW and they use points and it is all an approximation. I just realized that MFP does a better job of tracking, cheaper. There is no way to be perfectly accurate with food. Is that egg really 71 calories, or did the hen try extra hard and make it 73?
One thing I did learn from WW is you should measure stuff occasionally to develop a good "eye" for portion sizes. You should especially do this if you are meeting your tracking goals but still not losing. That could be one of the problems.
But it is tracking that counts, being accountable. Precise accuracy is neither attainable or necessary. Do you keep your finances on track by counting pennies? No, you do it by tracking dollars.8 -
Persons who are self centered but not introspective tend to think that other persons' behaviors can be judged in reference to themselves. This is an opportunity for the OP to recognize and accept that "overly accurate" is a phase disclosing that world view and that a person who weighs a couple of pickles and logs them is just doing what they chose to do and that it is "normal" for them. And, judging the efforts of others by pragmatic references to "results" is likewise misplaced.
Can't we just accept that a person who cleans their car interior with Q Tips just likes a really clean car interior?13 -
I do. I'm trying to make sure I get all my vitamins and minerals as well, so I want to make sure I track everything. Certain ingredients that may not contain much calories might contain alot of vitamins or minerals. Like lettuce on a sandwich. I want to know everything is accounted for so my body is working at it's best.3
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I log everything but operate on a basis of diminishing returns. On a relatively low calorie food like an apple I will just log the calories of an average apple, and I certainly won't weigh the apple and then the core to discover how much I consumed down to the last gram. Given that my exercise calories can only ever be an estimate I cannot see the point in sweating over a piece of fruit. But, each to their own.6
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My food scale is only accurate to +/- 5g, which is probably more accurate than my step tracking hardware and the wide variety of calorie burn estimates they give me.
I worry more about *consistency* than I do about *accuracy.* I keep plugging away and checking my results and recalibrating them to match my goals, and all that keeps me moving in the direction I want to go at varying rates of accomplishment.4 -
I'm not accurate at all. There was a time where I was maybe 75% accurate, but that would only last a few days or weeks until I got fed up. I typically used MFP as a food diary and there was nothing wrong with that, worked very well for me.
Now I don't track to lose, maintain or gain. Maybe the odd day or just protein to help me estimate in the future.0 -
I try to be as accurate as possible and have logged exhaustively since July of 2017 after five years of logging less diligently. Most here would probably consider that to be overkill considering I've stayed within the "normal" weight range for the duration of my time here but I find it to still be a helpful and necessary tool to monitor and maintain my weight and work towards my fitness and physique goals.2
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I'm not accurate at all when I log. Consistency matters more to me than being super accurate and I'm just not going to take the time to weigh and measure every little thing. I might weigh a portion of something a few times to get the hang of how big a serving is, and then I eyeball it after that. Sometimes I can't be bothered to create a recipe and I'll just search the database for something that sounds similar... I know I could be off by quite a lot by doing that, but oh well. If I was having trouble losing weight I would obviously tighten up my logging to find the culprit.5
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AllOutof_Bubblegum wrote: »There's no such thing as "overly accurate". You're either accurate or you're not, and there's no point in logging at all if you're not being accurate. You might as well be guessing at that point.
This isn't true at all. Loose logging is absolutely better than no logging at all. Sure, measuring every single thing tends to lead to the least margin of error, and if someone is having trouble losing, it's a good idea to look at tightening their logging. But it's not always feasible for everyone in every situation.
My schedule between work and the gym (and my own somewhat limited cooking ability), doesn't lead itself to prep cooking for the work week particularly well. But I get amazing, cooked, full and complete meals delivered to my office for lunch every day for $5. But I didn't cook it myself so I don't know all the ingredients or exact proportions. So I guesstimate. Is it perfectly accurate? No. Has it been good enough to lose 40 pounds? Absolutely.
Not everyone needs super tight logging to lose weight. For some, yes, but dismissing it out of hand ignores all of us who have succeeded with looser logging.9 -
I’m as accurate as it’s possible to be, I think. Every single thing I eat is weighed and logged to the gram.
Having said that, I completely agree it’s not necessary to be as obsessive as I am about it in order to actually drop the pounds. As has been mentioned everything involved has its intrinsic inaccuracies so no, I’m not saying you need a scientific laboratory approach to achieve your goals.
However...for me it’s a mental attitude thing. If I loosen up the military precision, my attitude loosens too. It just keeps me on track to know I’m ‘doing it right’.
I’m old enough to know how my brain works and I know that if I don’t do it this way I slide and I may as well give up!5 -
Not 100% accurate, but I’m losing and that’s good enough for me until I am no longer losing, or gaining.1
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I try to be as accurate as I need to be to keep my weight where I want it. Some weeks/months that is more accurate than others.4
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I am just getting back into the swing of things again on here but def think that logging of any kind and being concious of what your eating and roughly how many calories your taking in is better than not logging at all. There are times that we make a large slow cooker of stew and I dont have the time or patience to weigh everything out as im cutting it up and throwing it in then figuring out once its all together and im dishing it out how much i have- and usually my husband cooks supper, so unless its something simple like chicken with brocoli that i can weigh and measure a half a cup of exactly that food item, i guestimate. But most things I eat during the day like toast and PB or yogourt, coffee etc are easy to get the exact amount so I know roughly what I am at and that I am doing better and making better choices than before.1
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About every 6 months I go back to logging every bite and being as accurate as possible for a week. It is a good refresher and it allows me to check my recent habits and see if I need to tighten anything down a little more. I almost always find at least 1 thing that I feel needs improvement.
I am not sure everyone would share my definition of loosely logging so I don't want to say that but I am not 100 percent. I umbrella some things like chips. If you looked at my log you would think I ate Lay's potato chips and nothing else for months. I change the serving size to get the calories correct but all chips, Doritos, Cheetos, etc. are logged at Lay's.
I also log averages on some lower calorie items. When I make a salad the carrots are logged at 70 grams even if the actual amount is slightly higher or lower. It is only if it is much higher that I change it. Some people eyeball some of those things but I weigh because I already have the bowl on the scale anyway.
With all that said I lose weight slightly faster than my logged deficit (.2 pounds per week normally) so my system works for me. When/if the day comes that I do not lose as expected I am prepared to tighten down my logging.2 -
I agree that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So if weight loss is effortless and moods and energy are good, no need to stress the small stuff.
I would add that it was super easy to lose weight when I had a lot of weight to lose and that the closer to Goal weight I got the more important all of this became. In the beginning with 70 pounds to lose, I used cups and tablespoons. I guesstimated meat portions and cheese portions and nuts and avocados and I ate the same foods I had been eating which was mostly wheat, fruit, nuts, treats and dairy and the occasional vegetable. I lost weight pretty easily. Well, yeah. I had a lot of body fat to use as fuel.
As I got to within 20 pounds of a healthy weight, I had to really look at my macros and nutrition and I bought a food scale and a body weight scale. I don't think I could have lost that last 20 pounds without those tools and logging food. I made 13 out of 14 meals per week myself. I was careful. I was also hungry so I needed to log or I'd eat too much because instinctively I felt like I needed more food. That last 20 pounds was really difficult for me.
Now I'm in Maintenance and I've dabbled with not being anal. I stopped logging completely for a while. I tried not using the food scale. I stopped weighing myself.
My experience over the last 12 years in maintenance tells me that I need to log food. It doesn't have to be to-the-gram, but I do weigh meats, cheese, avocado, nuts, starchy vegetables, fruit, and other calorie-dense foods. I do that as much for calories as for making sure I'm getting enough protein. I eyeball portions of most low-cal vegetables. I definitely learned how to do that through meticulous logging of food and my own weight.
It's not a burden. It's a life skill.3 -
About every 6 months I go back to logging every bite and being as accurate as possible for a week. It is a good refresher and it allows me to check my recent habits and see if I need to tighten anything down a little more. I almost always find at least 1 thing that I feel needs improvement.
I am not sure everyone would share my definition of loosely logging so I don't want to say that but I am not 100 percent. I umbrella some things like chips. If you looked at my log you would think I ate Lay's potato chips and nothing else for months. I change the serving size to get the calories correct but all chips, Doritos, Cheetos, etc. are logged at Lay's.
I also log averages on some lower calorie items. When I make a salad the carrots are logged at 70 grams even if the actual amount is slightly higher or lower. It is only if it is much higher that I change it. Some people eyeball some of those things but I weigh because I already have the bowl on the scale anyway.
With all that said I lose weight slightly faster than my logged deficit (.2 pounds per week normally) so my system works for me. When/if the day comes that I do not lose as expected I am prepared to tighten down my logging.
We are like, logging twins, lol. Saved me some typing. I'm also prepared to tighten up logging if I find I'm not losing at the expected rate, but fortunately, that hasn't happened yet.2 -
I used to make a big point of being as accurate as possible. But now I've been doing this long enough that my logging is a lot looser. Sometimes I log very little or inconsistently. Other times I decide to tighten things up and get back to logging at least 95% of what I eat. I used to also make a big point of logging all my exercise to account for those calories, but I play it pretty fast and loose with that now.0
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I try to be brutally honest. I’m not fooling anyone but myself.
And I’ve discovered even when I think I’m grossly overestimating, I’m not. (I’m looking at YOU, Lidl bakery peanut butter cookies. )
Currently sitting up the street from a car dealership while my car is in for a four hour repair. I’m afraid my “brutally honest” lemon bar and chai are going to be half my calories for the day, and it’s not even 11am. 😭4 -
I try to be as accurate as possible. Except with my morning coffee. I never measure my creamer (don’t worry I don’t pour loads in at most it’s 2 servings). Idk I just like to have this one thing, first thing in the morning that I don’t measure. But after that yes I measure everything and try to be as accurate as I can.0
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Not very accurate - I often don't bother including low calorie items, and guesstimate a lot of things, but it keeps me more or less at maintenance. I need to tighten up a bit now for a few weeks, as I would like to drop a couple of kilos before the xmas food and drink onslaught.0
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springlering62 wrote: »I try to be brutally honest. I’m not fooling anyone but myself.
And I’ve discovered even when I think I’m grossly overestimating, I’m not. (I’m looking at YOU, Lidl bakery peanut butter cookies. )
Currently sitting up the street from a car dealership while my car is in for a four hour repair. I’m afraid my “brutally honest” lemon bar and chai are going to be half my calories for the day, and it’s not even 11am. 😭
I hate how much it hurts to log those things. But like you said, we are only kidding ourselves by not logging honestly. Chai and lemon bars are among my favorite things. I hope they were tasty!2 -
I have been accused of being obsessive with my weighing (weighing grapes, half an apple, etc etc). I weigh everything in a recipe. I use USDA and then select the highest calorie count option. I will put in quick add calories anytime I find myself grabbing 1 potato chip out of a bag without thinking (though this happens less now).
All that being said, if you're not as accurate and it's still working for you, then doesn't matter what the rest of us do.Shortgirlrunning wrote: »I never measure my creamer (don’t worry I don’t pour loads in at most it’s 2 servings).
I thought that until I actually measured mine and discovered I was very very wrong.2 -
I have been accused of being obsessive with my weighing (weighing grapes, half an apple, etc etc). I weigh everything in a recipe. I use USDA and then select the highest calorie count option. I will put in quick add calories anytime I find myself grabbing 1 potato chip out of a bag without thinking (though this happens less now).
All that being said, if you're not as accurate and it's still working for you, then doesn't matter what the rest of us do.Shortgirlrunning wrote: »I never measure my creamer (don’t worry I don’t pour loads in at most it’s 2 servings).
I thought that until I actually measured mine and discovered I was very very wrong.
I like to weigh everything, even if I don't log it exactly that (I normally just log an average for fruits and vegetables - except avocado) because I like to test an see how accurate my eyeballs are. The more I weigh, the more accurate I've been getting with guessing the weight. It really helps me when estimating outside the home.
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