Something I found about portion sizes
 

So I like calorie counting but I do NOT weigh food; I'm sorry I don't have the time or the patience and I don't even cook like that, so...I have been looking for some sort of guide for portion sizes relative to weight so I can enter the correct one in my calorie-counting program and I found one! :carrot:

WebMd portion size guide

I pretty much trust WebMd and this looks about right...hope somebody else can benefit from it!

Well, I don't have the time/patience to get fat again and have to lose the weight all over again lol :lol:.

To be honest, it's so much easier for *me* to just weigh it in grams and convert to calories later while I'm cooking/preparing, rather than having to figure out if something looks more like a hockey puck or a golf ball and then look up the calories for that amount anyway (since I don't use any sort of program to enter my food journal). However, everyone's different and I'm sure this info will help others who prefer guesstimating and what not, so thanks for posting. I just wanted to point out that us "weighers" are not nutso hehe. I'll definitely be using this when I go out to eat at a restaurant or a friend's house, though!

Oh and this is what really got me into weighing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY

it's nice to get an idea, but unless you have a deck of cards around all the time it's still easy to have more than you think. I also thought it would be a pain in the butt to weigh everything, but it really is a big eye opener... like how much 3oz of chicken really is or a 2T serving of nut butter. Once you get portions down for must of the stuff you eat you can start eyeballing the portions.

jkinboston89, Just watched that video, another eye opener.. I admit I use cups and spoons for cereal and some other things. :O

I too weigh my food and do portions by counting items. It is so easy to overestemate and thus eat way more than you think you are eating.
Fit,
you may find that guestemating is a great way to start and get portions under control but in the long run weighing food is going to be your friend.

Thanks ladies, I don't think anybody is nutso but at this time in my life, I just don't have time to weight things and then prepare them and then cook them. I barely have time to cook (I'm up 16 hours a day as is between working out, school and work) and guesstimating seems to be doing okay for me. Perhaps when I graduate I'll have more time.

Anyway, I didn't mean to come off as facetious or mocking, I just thought this was cool.

I kinda had to post about the video that jkin posted. I know that weighing is going to be more accurate than measuring cups, but, number one, I didnt care for the lady's tone in the video (she sounded awfully condescending), and 2 ,her numbers didnt seem to be that accurate. The difference should not be THAT big. So I duplicated her experiment.

First off, someone who is really trying to lose weight, whether they use a scale or not is not going to be tossing in heaping cups of stuff. Those who are serious enough to go out and buy a scale, are probably already serious enough to know that you need to use level cups, not heaping ones.
Secondly, the amount she showed as the "proper" cup was actually way below the line of the cup, which on both cups I tried was closer to 33 g, not 40. Just to the lip of the cup on both my measuring cups turned out to be 41 grams. Only 1 g over the 40g serving size.

Guess the lady's condescending tone really grated on me, so I had to check it out. Wasnt tryin to hijack the thread. :-)

Tornado - I am shocked, shocked mind you that something posted on YouTube could be inaccurate (hoping my sarcasm is coming across). Good for you for your skepticism, scientific approach, and reporting to us.

I don't have a scale, though I want one. Measuring is working fine for me right now. I may eventually get that food scale when my loss slows down but it was really the second helpings that were getting me, not a few calories from over-scooping.I don't even over-scoop when I measure b/c that's cheating yourself so I prefer under-scooping, just in case.

Knowing what a portion size looks like is vital information when you are going out to eat at a place that doesn't have their nutritional info handy or when someone else is cooking for you. When it's just not feasible to weigh, it's good to be able to accurately eye-ball a portion.

Fit4Lyfe - I think that reference is really helpful.

I understand the benefits of weighing food and that's all well and good to do at home. However, I think being able to eyeball portion sizes is a good life skill. I don't personally plan to avoid foods at parties, resturaunts or conferences for the rest of my life because I can't weigh and precisely track their calories. I would like to be able to take a look and know roughly know how much I am eating so I can make sure I don't overeat and can balance with the rest of my day.

I am going to a conference this afternoon and they always have cheese, crackers and veggies out as a snack. The reference regarding a serving of cheese being about 3 dice was really helpful for me.

I also found this one the other day which I thought I'd share...

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-20...-look-like.htm

Thanks, you know I also thought that lady was a bit off and it was more of a scare tactic than anything else. Wildflower, like you, my meetings often involve some snackage and we had catered lunch yesterday and I feel I was able to eyeball my way around a sticky situation.

IDK I just want this to be a lifestyle change, not a diet and I know in the long run, I wont be able to keep whipping out a kitchen scale and carefully weighing everything; I am going to law school in the next two years and I know that will involve eating on the go and a lot of work, so I want to learn the tools I need now to combat what I know will be a very hectic next couple of years.

Thanks to those who understood where I was coming from.

I think the tone of condescension is possibly a misunderstanding. Leigh Peele (the lady in the video) is INCREDIBLY knowledgeable and kind. Check out her blog. I have her Fat Loss Troubleshoot book and it's very informative and really opened my eyes to a lot of things.

Ok, I watched the video...very cool! Where do I get one of these food scales??? :)

I have no idea how to convert calories, I usually just buy foods which already have the calories on the packet then divide depending on how much I eat of it, the cup thing I'm not sure about because I'm always wondering what size of cup? I get confused alot :lol: think I'll have to figure all this out :S This'll be difficult :lol:

I hope I didn't offend you, fit4lyfe and others. I don't want you to feel that I don't understand you.

But for me, weighing food isn't a "diet," and it's just not that hard for me to put something on a scale before I put it on my plate. Like I said, the guide you posted would be very helpful at restaurants or other events.

Still, for those who (like me! ;))became obese because of portion control issues, weighing is a really great tool. I never ate big macs, I never ate ho hos (not saying you or anyone else did!). I LITERALLY became obese because I did not understand what a normal serving is. I still have trouble figuring it out. I'm just not that great with guesstimating. Sometimes I have to do it, but in the comfort of my own home, its really nice to just take the guess work out.

I don't want people to think I sit at home weighing my food all day LOL. I know busy and I commiserate with you. I go to school full time, too. 6 classes. I also am a research assistant, do an internship, have a family, and a 2 hour daily commute (ughh). I TOTALLY understand wanting to make food a simple thing. The thing is, I bring my food with me from home, so I don't do on-the-go at restaurants or anything like that, so maybe that's why I feel like the eyeballing thing just doesn't apply to me, and I can't be alone on that. I also bring my own stuff for meetings instead of snacking on the stuff everyone else eats. I just weigh my stuff out, wrap it up, and bring it with me. So it just makes sense for me to weigh it out since I can.

Anyway, I definitely think this could help people, but there's nothing wrong with having to weigh either and I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Just my 2 cents, though. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone. To each her own! ;)

I can see where the reference way of eating can be helpful in maintenance, but not when its time to lose. Not for me, anyway. I need to have progress. I know I can over do it and quick. a digital scale is invaluable.Like a few hours ago I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I didn't want to put too much peanut butter on it but I was hard and fast that it had to be on serviing. What I did was placed the bread and spoon on the scale. Hit tare when I had as much as I wanted a (around 38 grams -- a serving is 33 grams) made my sandwich and was on my way.

I think when you are trying to lose weight, you need concrete perspective and numbers. As I said, for ME I need something concrete. Guessimation will have its place when I am 194lbs. Even then I would still measure and weight 95% of the time. If I didn't have issues with portions, I would be on this site right now and have the issues with food I have today.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :shrug:

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