How do you track food?

We do the zip lock meat trick too, makes cooking easier.

I have to admit being lazy when it comes to metering the veg and stuff through because its usually the add ins that raise their calories so the difference between 1/2 cup of peas and 1 cup is small enough to worry about.

The one that surprised me a little was the calorific content of dressings, mayo, ketchup, mustard etc. I now log those.

Some people do weigh everything. I do not personally have a food scale but I do measure cups and such to a T for best accuracy.

When I cook at home, I log everything I put in a dish and usually divide it into more portions. For instance, I made a massive casserole last night that said it makes 6 portions, I thought WOW thats a huge serving, so I made it 9 instead. much more practical and it was easy to divide up.


I feel that if you do not track as accurately as possible, you likely won't get the results you want, as it is easy to over/under estimate.

edit: what she said^^^ about restaurants. always research ahead of time.

I weigh or measure everything but fruits or vegetables when I'm making food. At restaurants I try to go off the nutrition info if it's available or try to find an equivalent type of food elsewhere. I've been in a program that counts most fruits and veggies as 'free' foods, as long as you're aware of how you feel and if you're overeating or not. I've really had to learn to be aware in the last little while, since there's a reason I got to where I was in the first place.

I don't use a scale but I use measuring cups/tablespoons. When cooking meat I just use the nutritional info on package as my calorie source. When eating out I have to estimate since I would look ridiculous whipping out a measuring cup to measure my rice and curry chicken LOL.

I weight everything, it doesn't take much time. Yes I enter recipes into mfp as well. If I'm not accurate in my food enterting my weight loss won't be successful. It's all a math game. Calories in exercise out.

Adding to the baggies crowd, I furthermore portion all junk that I impulsively buy when I'm having an off day and then write the amount of calories on the portion sized bag. I've found that it cuts back a lot of the 'oh, I want a snack! how about some chips!' kind of binging because, 1. It's pre-portioned, and 2. I have to be real about the calories when I grab it, not as an afterthought. It works great for anything you get in bulk, really, especially if you do a lot of smoothies and use real fruit.

I have also found that 'snack size' baggies are ~1 cup, so I use them to portion lunch-sized pasta when I make a big pot of it. That way, when I'm on my way to work, I just grab a baggie and I know that it's a lunch-sized portion of x.

And speaking of lunch, bento boxes with little cups are a godsend for not cheating on amounts!

weigh meat in 3-4oz portions, measure everything else with measuring cups. after a while you can eyeball a plate and know about how much rice, veggies there are.. cereal I measure and bag before I eat, same with nuts and other snacks, makes a world of difference

Portion size guide: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/portion-control/NU00267

Depending on the type of salad, I use plain red wine vinegar (no cals) or Bolthouse Yogurt Ranch (45 cals).

Bar code scanner, and measuring cups

I read labels on everything but when eating out and making complicated recipes, I guess. I probably overestimate, but I figure that's better than the other way around.

I estimate. But I eat a lot of fruits and veggies. "1 carrot" is simply 1 carrot. I don't eat meat so I don't need to weigh them.
I read what's on the labels of things.
If I'm estimating, I try to always put calories towards the higher end.