How accurate are you?

I measure everything.

I need to know as accurately as possible my calories in and out. It helps keep me a little sane when the scale is not showing results. Then, I know what I have done and have more faith that the scale will catch up.

I weigh and measure everything. 1st things I bought when I started were a digital scale and set of measuring cups and spoons for the kitchen. Now I'm thinking about buying some mini digital scales to take everywhere with me. I'm sure there are going to be some strange looks in restaurants when I weigh everything :laugh:

I tend to be as accurate as possible. Probably my OCD side of thinking. But sometimes I go "eh, close enough".

Ditto I use these rubbermaid bowls that have measurements marked on them so I know how much I am getting. For fruits and veggies, I rough estimate, but for foods that pack on more calories (chips, rice, noodles, etc etc..) I measure to make sure I'm not sneaking in extra.

My digital kitchen scale is the best gift I have ever gotten!! I use it ALL the time!

I have scales and measuring cups. I learned to pre-portion my meats etc for sandwhiches and meals. From there I learned how much my bowls and cups held of a particular food (where a cup was etc).

It helped that I figured out I'm pretty good at off the cuff weighing and measuring thanks to 7 years of making dog food and having to portion and weight it as I put it into baggies and freeze it. (go figure that I had learned to control, portion and ensure my dogs were eating healthy for 7 years before I realised I should be doing this for me too!!!)

But I get as exacting as possible. I want to make sure I'm not going over and sabotaging my efforts here!

I had to laugh at this. I too cook for my dogs (or feed them raw, depending on the day), just wanting what was healthiest for them. About the time I was wandering through a food co-op looking for grass-fed meats for my dogs, I was like, yeah, I don't even eat that good, and started looking into my own nutrition. I probably have my girl, Mischief, to thank for the fact that I'm health conscious at all.

I try to measure as much as I can. I have also bought smaller dishes that are 1 cup so that I can use them and not have to worry.

I try not to obsess over getting an exact calorie count every day. That's what I thought this was about when I started logging everything. What I have found though, is that keeping a log has helped me identify my pitfalls (for me it's Mexican food and pasta) and to re-learn how to eat a healthy diet. Ballpark figures will be close enough for most of us: if we are truly committed to keeping a log and to making a lifestyle change, we will get down to our healthy weight and stay there!

When I am home I measure things out exactly. I will measure the lunch meat I put in my eggs, the cheese, the pasta I eat, the fish, chicken, yogurt etc. etc. I even measure out what I put in my salads. Since I do this with some things like the lunch meat, cheese and things like that I know how much an ounce or two is but I still double check in case the person cut the stuff a little more thick.

When I go out and I find something similar to what I ate it's more of a guesstimate.

It's just part of what I do when I prepare my food. Hell, I even count out 40 pistachio nuts to make the serving size when I eat them.

Simple question, as I get work towards my goal I wonder how accurate others are in the portion size. Do you measure everything out exactly? Estimate based on something in particular? A bit of both? Any thoughts would be great thanks.

A bit of both here. I do eat out occasionally so I do need some questimates. I do try to break it down to it's parts unless there is a known good value in MFP. In class we have been through the '4 oz is as big as a deck of cards' discussion so I should be pretty close.

When I'm home, I do measure most everything.

I'm pretty excellent at estimating most things - but some things, if I'm unsure, I'll actually measure.

I committed myself to a 30 day period where I ate nothing but Weight Watchers Smart Ones. It could have been Lean Cuisine or whatever, but the thing that I was after had to do with what you are dealing with: exactness. I was precise in that the packaging gave me precision. THe meal choices were great in that I could eat Pepperoni Pizza, Hamburgers, whatever came in one of their boxes. My only concern was calorie precision, yet when I finished 30 days, I learned how to self-elect foods and sizes of portions from the experience. Together with the obvious ordering of fish vs. steak and asparagus vs. french fries, I avoided fast food altogether, sans Subway, which became my fail-safe backstop. Sitll is. Been losing steadily as before, and now use Lean Cuisine to augment this approach. But the key is precision, especially until you learn what you need to learn in order to eat to lose.

Measuring how much fits into the dishes you use most helps or, where you can, measure out the serving size portions as you get them in the door and put them in sandwich baggies. That way you don't need to measure like mad each time you eat. Then there are the tips like...1 serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards, or one serving of cheese is the size of your thumb. Those are actually more accurate than you would think.

This and I use my scale. Sometimes I get lazy so I use the above technique. It has worked for me. Or if it's chips or cookies or something that can be "counted" I count the amt of crackers or cookies I eat.

I recently read somewhere that measuring everything and logging every calorie can interfere with your bodies ability to sense hunger/fullness signals.. but I figure if I could trust my bodies signals I wouldn't have gained in the first place. lol.. So I measure most stuff.. but I'm getting better at eyeballing things I eat often..

I don't weigh or measure things but I'm pretty good at eyeballing things. I do tend to enter things at 10 - 15% more just in case my eyeball is not as good as I think it is!

Me too. And I've gotten even better as I've measured things I'm not sure of and gotten a good visual estimate. I cook a lot so have a pretty good size estimate in my head anyway. It's ounces that kill me (cups, teaspoons are easy).

Here's a wallet size portion estimator. It really helps.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/printable/wallet-portion-control-size-guide

I'm also much more careful about high calorie than low calorie foods. Meat, potatoes - measure. Lettuce? One cup - two cups. Who cares?