Is there anything you eat that you don't bother to weigh and log?

I log pretty much everything except gum. I figure I burn the calories from chewing it. And it helps me stop snacking.

I ate 2 cheese its from my daughters bowl today and didn’t log it. If i had more I would have logged it. Sometimes I cant resist the tortilla chips on the counter and I eat 4 or 5. I log it. Sometimes I want dessert so I eat 2 marshmallows. I log it. I do log my romaine lettuce.

I'll usually not bother logging a leaf or two of lettuce, a thin slice of tomato, a couple of slices of onion or pickles on a sandwich. Or vinegar or mustard used to make salad dressing or other homemade condiment. Herbal teas.

I don't always log black coffee, black tea, or diet soda. Once in a while I won't bother logging a little splash of fruit juice added to seltzer, but usually I do.

Pretty much everything else gets logged

The lime or lemon wedge I put in my matcha daily, one extra frozen blueberry (the one I pop in my mouth daily while making my oatlmeal with weighed frozen mixed berries), added salt (no sodium-related health problems, else I'd bother), some calorie-negligible herbs/seasonings that are shaken/ground on (like dried basil or black pepper). Occasional calorie-negligible drinks (e.g., herb teas). Also, every single thing I forgot I ate (not many of those, I'dbetcha ).

Everything else, when at home, weighed and logged, because the "weigh it, log it" routine works better for me personally than "think about whether it's worth logging, then maybe weigh/log". I like autopilot: Weigh, log. Others preferences may vary. It's a personal style thing, eh?

When I used to log I would usually weigh something once and then use that entry always. Sometimes I'd weigh bananas, apples, avocado, dry pasta for lunch, peanut butter in a smoothie, cheese. I used measuring spoons/cups for liquids, egg whites, oils and dressings, cooked rice, potatoes, beans, berries. Or if just go with serving size on the package.

I often weighed my main protein sources like meat, protein powder, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, only up until dinner then I would just guestimate. Weekends I would estimate or do a quick add calories since I would be out a lot.

Looking back, I was a really inaccurate logger. I mostly used it as a food diary to keep track of what I ate and my approximate protein levels. It worked well for me to learn to be more aware of my intake, now I don't log at all.

One teaspoon of basil seeds and lemon

There are lots of things I dont weigh - every banana I eat is either a small banana or 1.5 or such of a small banana.
I dont weigh eggs - they are all mediums size.
Just 2 of many examples where I use law of averages.


But I do log those things.

Things like lettuce leafs, slices of tomato - no, I dont weigh them or bother logging them.

I try to log everything - and weigh most things. Partially because I'm a little OCD and in a way, that helps. If I skip things in the log, it is so easy to just stop logging totally. I do estimate low cal items from time to time. Or items that I know the details for. Example, the bread I use tends to be 45-49g for 2 slices instead of the 41g for 2 slices that it shows on the label. So I may log it as 49 without checking.

Nope I log everything. If I slack at one minor thing I know I will at things with lots more calories.

I have become almost OCD with what I log. For some reason if I don't log something to a tee, in my head I calculate a much higher number and feel guilty, like I can't eat something else later. One thing I don't calculate are things like basil, onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper. I just don't add enough to even justify counting those. But because one of the things I keep track of is fiber, I do weight out things like lettuce. Although, I always use spinach and never lettuce. I have two scales at work and two scales at home. I feel like it helps me be accountable and also helps me understand that grabbing a handful of grapes wasn't as bad as I thought in my head.

I don’t weigh the banana I have in my smoothie every morning. I figure the law of averages will balance that out.

During cherry season, I don’t count cherries. I keep a big bag in the fridge and grab four or five a couple of times a day. That’s my guilty treat, and I only eat two or three bags a year so I roll with it. If I sit down to eat a whole bowl, those do get weighed and logged.

I find myself creeping up on the amount of skim milk I foam and heat for my chai lattes, but I’ve let that slide. The pleasure is, well, straight up pleasure, and for the amount of calories, natch. I’ll pretend with that one. It just seems ridiculously OCD to weigh out 30gr of skim milk, and a lot of it stays in the plunger anyway.

This whole thing is a mind game and obsessive rationalization. I guess that’s why I enjoy it so much. Maybe that’s why I’m so much happier these days. A safe numerical place to focus my triflin’ pettiness.

LynnJ9 wrote: »

I am curious if most people weigh and log everything. Do you weigh lettuce for salads? Do you log every little thing, even a handful of blueberries?

I don't log anything anymore, but when I did I just had a generic recipe I created for "garden salad"...didn't weigh anything out, but I would just use that to log an approximate if I had a salad and then just added other things to my log that I put on it like the dressing or chicken or eggs or whatever.

I always logged fruit, but I never weighed it...I just used the generic "medium apple" or in the case of a handful of berries I'd just log a half cup or something.

That said, with my training and whatnot I lost on average a pound per week eating around 2500 calories...so I had a good bit of wiggle room to not have to worry that much about small amounts of low calorie foods. That could be more of an issue for someone with a low calorie target. A handful of this and a handful of that can add up if you're doing that a lot, which is one of the prime reasons I think there are so many "I'm on 1200 calories and not losing weight" threads. Those things add up if you're doing quite a bit of nibbling throughout the day.