Weighing Your Food
 

I have seen the food scales for sale at the WW meetings and am wondering if anyone has used/uses these (or similar) and if so, what are your thoughts on them? I'm trying to decide if it would be worth the cost and extra steps in food prep. Thanks!

I weigh almost everything - cooked pasta, peanut butter, chips, ingredients in recipes, cereals, yogurt, granola, ingredients in my smoothies, everything. It does add some steps to the food prep but I like knowing exactly how much I'm consuming. And, a lot of the things I had been measuring as one serving turned out to be 1.5-2 in reality, so it really helped in that respect as well. I imagine it would be the same thing with points - a higher serving weight than you think could make it really be a higher point value, right?

I HAVE to weigh everything. If it can be weighed, I'll weigh it. I suffer from portion distortion, and if I don't weigh it, I can't be sure that I'm accurate. If it has to be measured, I'll measure it. Even after SO LONG on this program. I weigh and measure EVERYTHING.

In fact, if I make a WW recipe chili or ANY recipe that is in a bowl (like spaghetti sauce, stew, soup, and so on) and it serves 4, I'll weigh the entire dinner in a large metal bowl, divide the weight by 4 and serve myself exactly one quarter of the chili. If I don't I'll creep up to 1/3 of the recipe, and then 1/2...I can so EASILY rationalize anything!

Any digital scale will work. One that converts from ounces to grams and back is useful because it lets me use North American and European recipes without agonzing over the math.

Me too, I have to measure, if not I end up eating double or triple. I guess that with time it comes to you so naturally that you don't feel it as double work when you are cooking. I have a digital scale that I bought when I was pregnant, they are not that expensive.

A food scale is a HUGE eye opener. Especially with things like cereal. You would likely be astounded at how small one serving of dry cereal is! It's tablespoons and barely covers the bottom of my cereal bowls. A food scale is the best way to be sure you are really eating what you think you are eating.

I haven't been on this forum since November 08 but found this to be a good place to chime in. When I was weighing my food I was so much more in control. I stopped a several months and ago and of course now I am starting all over. I just bought a new scale and everything. I HAVE to weigh my food. I know that now. No question about it.

I weight everything or measure it in a measuring cup! It will really open up your eyes about serving size.

I purchased the weight watchers scale and I LOVE it. I just type in the name of the food and the points come right up. As soon as I get home from the market I weigh all of my fruits, chips, cereals, ect. I have become the biggest fan of snack size baggies. I weigh everything out and mark the points on the bag and for the rest of the week there are no excuses for time or anything else because it's already done. Also say your eating chips I find that if I put them in baggies I only eat one baggie and I am satisfied but if I sit down with the bag before I know it it is empty....hope some of this helped GOOD LUCK

I have the WW scale and LOVE IT! As posted, you can type in your food and it will tell you the points, but you can also put in the nutritional information (if the food isn't in the scale's database) and it will figure the points for you. Cereal was definitely an eye opener. I also love to use it for fruits. I put some strawberries on the scale, and start typing strawberries. Once I find strawberries in the database, I press points and then keep adding strawberries to the scale until I see that it adds up to a point. You'll get alot of strawberries!

OK, I think I'm convinced! Thanks everyone for your replies and the info. I use measuring cups and pay attention to recipe serving sizes, but I think it will help for things like cuts of meat, fruits, etc. so I will be getting myself a scale and trying it out. I wonder if I'll be in for any surprises! :eek:

Let us know what you think!

Yup! I have the weight of most of my pots, pans, and serving bowls written down. That way I can do what kiramira does. Weigh the whole mess of food in the bowl, subtract the weight of the bowl, divide by however many servings there are, and serve myself one serving. The next step is to serve my husband everything else. He eats my healthy food, he just eats MORE of it!

I think that things that absorb water are particularly tricky to measure. I weigh my pasta dry and cook my serving in a separate little pot. I think rice is the hardest to measure! I weigh the bowl of the rice cooker after the rice is done and use the above technique to make sure that I'm getting the right amount.

If I'm not positively RELIGIOUS about weighing things my serving sizes increase. Plus you don't have to do as many dishes as you can just zero out your scale with your recipe on it and add what you need right to the bowl. No need to use a measuring up or measuring spoons!

I live for my food scale!

I don't use a food scale, but I do use measuring cups for things like grains and cereals, and for measuring out 1/2 cup of milk for cereal or 1 cup of milk to drink. I used to measure sliced strawberries, but now I eyeball it and I'm doing okay with that.

We just bought a digi scale and love having. It really has helped esp on things like chicken (where I thought we were eating to much, but weren't) and things like spaghetti, which we were REALLY over eating if you do it by the serving size you should.

It all depends. In the beginning I used a scale for EVERYTHING, but after a month or so I knew by looking at things what they were. I can now eyeball 3oz or 4 oz or whatever it may be of chicken, fish, red meat, etc. and pretty much anything else. I limit myself on a lot of things I can eat in general though so I get used to everything pretty quickly. The only starch I eat now is a 1/2 cup of white rice with 1 meal a week at the most. Maybe a slice of bread as a treat or some crackers, but I always limit what I eat. I guess it's a lot easier when you don't eat as much! =)