Do you measure before or after? I assume before, but that is pretty difficult when its a big piece of meat you are sharing with the whole family? Is there a way to figure out what the weight is cooked?

I measure before. If I am in a restaurant or it is a family meal, I aim for about 6oz. Which should be the size of two decks of cards.

I'm interested to hear other responses.

I'm not on IP, but I have a lot of experience comparing and estimating the raw to cooked weights and cooked to raw weights of meat.

One of the easiest ways calculate the raw weight from the cooked weight is to weigh the whole big piece before AND after cooking. Then you know how much that particular meat shrinks, and you can apply that number in reverse (divide it from the cooked weight to determine the raw weight) to determine the raw weight from a portion.

For example, say I cook a 60 ounce (3.75 lb) roast. and end up with a 40 ounce cooked roast by dividing the 40 by 60 I get the amount of shrinkage (.667 or approximately 2/3).


You take the raw weight (4) and divide it by the amount of shrinkage (.67).

Likewise next time you cook that same kind of roast you can estimate how much cooked meat you'll end up with (by multiplying the raw weight by .67).

Multiply by the shinkage factor to calculate the cooked weight from the raw weight

Divide by the shrinkage factor to calculate the raw weight from the cooked weight


Both calculations come in handy.

For example my mother always used to say that fior boneless pork, beef, chicken or turkey, when you had guests you always bought at least half a pound per person (which usually yeilds a serving size of about 5 to 6 ounces).

For dieting the reverse calculation comes in handy and after you've weighed the larger piece of meat before and after cooking, you can calculate the reverse easily enough.

Net weight after cooking is going to vary based on cooking method as well as meat used. I usually portion out my raw meat separate from the family, so that I know exactly what I should be having. It might mean cooking mine separately, or making sure I know which piece of meat is mine in the cooking dish. If I'm not the one preparing the food (or if I'm making one large piece of meat or a whole chicken), I aim for 6 oz of cooked meat. I'm sure there are some instances when I go over the 8oz raw portion, but it happens rarely enough that I don't kill myself over it.

I'm also not on IP, but I do calorie counting. I just look up the calories of cooked meats. If there's some variation, I figure that my workouts help offset any underestimation.