[therex]

I don't see it as a necessary tool, so i don't use one. I'm not really obsessive by nature, and even buying measuring cups was something that i saw as too anal. I don't see weighing my food on scales as a sustainable habit for the rest of my life so I've just never done it. I've lost a significant amount of weight (and still losing) just using measuring cups and spoons, so it works for me.. you just have to find what's best for you.

[Shmead]

Weighing helps me emotionally. If I didn't weigh my food, I'd be second guessing myself all the time--"Did I over do that a little?" "Was that bigger than last time?" and I'd basically feel a little guilty after each meal. Weighing means I KNOW, and that's liberating.

[kaplods]

Any method that you're comfortable with and find effective is a good one, but "time savings" really isn't a great argument against modern digital food scales, because of how quickly it's possible to weigh foods. Expense is a better reason as good digital scales (until recently) were fairly expensive (it took me a long time to justify the $40 expense for my first one). But my current one was only $15 and works even faster than my last one.

I don't think weighing my food (on a digital scale with a zero button) has ever taken me more than 30 seconds (and 30 seconds would be for a complicated recipe. Most foods take 5 seconds or less to weigh), so I don't see guesstimation as an incredible time saver (but a good skill in cases where a scale isn't feasible).

If you're using an old-style spring balance scale, then weighing would be more time consuming than measuring or guesstimating, but with modern digital scales, I find that it actually takes less time to weigh food than to measure it or even to recall or find my list of estimation rules. Like Shmead, I tend to second-guess myself, so that in the time it would take for me to be sure that my serving size truly is the appropriate size, I could have weighed the item. There's not enough time savings to feel like I've saved anything when I don't use the scale.

For example yesterday afternoon, I had chocolate chex with dried blueberries and milk to satisfy my PMS chocolate craving (not as low carb as I'd like, but a vast improvement over my traditional chocolate bars). It took me maybe twenty seconds to weigh everything, because I put the bowl on the scale and turned it on. Then I turned around to pull the cereal and blueberries from the pantry. Poured an ounce of cereal into the bowl, hit the zero button, added an ounce of blueberries, hit the zero button again and added 8 oz of milk and zeroed the button again, and put the milk back in the fridge and the cereal and blueberries into the pantry (2 starch, 1 dairy, and 1 fruit on my exchange plan).

Even though it took me a few seconds on the scale I can't really count most of that time, because it's time I would have spent even if I didn't have the scale (pouring the cereal, pouring the milk). It was really only the time looking at the scales readout that was time I wouldn't have spent if I weren't weighing. Looking at it that way, not using the scale would have saved me a whopping 3 to 5 seconds.

Even though I weigh most foods, I still spend five minutes or less per day using the food scale. Because of that zero key, it doesn't take any more time to weigh the food as it would to serve up the food directly onto the plate (because that's exactly what I am doing - I put the plate or dish on the scale and just note the weight before I zero the scale and add the next food or ingredient).

I do use the portion size estimates at restaurants and family and social gatherings. I have several memorized, and also have a cheat sheet. However, if they ever make a scale small enough to carry and use discreetly I'll weigh my food at social gatherings and restaurants too.

[Number8]

I guess at all my measurements using objects like this. maybe I'm just a good guesser, but aside from the past 2 weeks (vacation) I have lost 2-3 Lbs a week consistently.
On my vacation I guessed but allowed for maintenance instead of loss and stayed within 2 Lbs depending on how much water I drank.
Meat servings are usually about 3" square, and so is my palm, so I just make sure the meat is smaller then that.
A regular mug has a volume of 1 cup- so when I measure grains I guess how much it would take to fill a mug.
I drink 0 calories and I never use oils or spreads. If I use a sauce I'll guess out a couple tablespoons and add a bunch of water to make it go farther.

So I consider guessing an acceptable strategy at least until it doesn't work anymore.

[thesame7lbs]

If you think about it, it doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent. You may be off on your calorie count, but as long as you're consistently off, it doesn't matter. You may think you're eating more or less calories than you really are, but as long as you always eat approximately the same amount, it's fine. If you stall, you go lower. Doesn't matter what the number is, it matters if you're burning more. But that's why when someone says they're not losing on x number of calories, often people will ask if they are weighing, measuring, or estimating.

For some of us, it can be hard to be consistent when estimating, so the scale is very handy.

I resisted the scale at first because I 100% thought it was nutso and would be too time consuming. But I am a horrible estimator. I never pick the right size tupperware for leftovers, right size box for shipping, things like that. Spacial relations and whatnot. I weighed my chicken the other day and 3.5 oz looked way bigger than a deck of cards to me.

[jennistewart]

I've found that getting used to the right portions is more important than calorie counters. Because once I find what portion size is right for a given food group, then staying within the right amount of calories takes care of itself.

Moreover, i used to count calories all the time. and when i had a hiccup, i'd be hard on myself since i wouldn't have good data, and then start all over.

thats why its no longer calories are king for me, but instead portion sizes are king.

i just got an iphone not too long ago and there are several apps that help you visualize portions like lose it and intelli-diet

you can start off with measuring cups, but after a little while, you can just do it by memory