For those of you who weigh your food and use ****** to track your calories......

[Dreamchaser]

Originally Posted by metqa

Well, with foods that change volume like spinach, you must weigh it raw to get an accurate count.

Really? I was thinking the opposite, that you would need to reweigh it again after cooking since it wilts down so much?

[metqa]

Originally Posted by Dreamchaser

Really? I was thinking the opposite, that you would need to reweigh it again after cooking since it wilts down so much?

What is lost is mostly water. no calories in water. the only point in re-weighing would be to find out how much water is lost and frankly that is not important.

What is important is how much vegetal matter is being consumed and that can vary with volume and mass, and since it can vary widely, it's recommended to weigh raw, as it usually results in less calories, because raw usually includes natural water weight.

Okay, lets say you measure either volume or mass ( with spinach people usually measure volume. say one cup of spinach.

Raw you'd have very little spinach in one cup, but cooked spinach takes a lot more to fill a cup volume.

weight, the same thing. if you took a bowl and filled it with spinach and weighed it, it would weigh X amount. if you took the same bowl and filled it with cooked spinach it would hold a lot more cooked spinach and therefore weigh more. Any volume or mass of raw spinach has a lot less spinach than the same volume or mass of cooked wilted spinach.

The problem is not measuring it raw, then cooking then measuring it cooked. the problem is cooking it first then measuring it, cause you'd you'd eat more in the same volume of cooked than in the same volume of raw.

Random analogy. if Balloons were food ( the latex) a balloon filled with air is bigger but less "food" than a handful of unfilled balloons which is more plastic, but less volume. Since many people choose not to use scales for food but simply measure in cups and bowls, it becomes a problem that cooked give you more food than raw, simply because cooked takes up less space and you can pack more in.

Another analogy. Bread dough weighs much more than the finished bread. When you eat bread they don't consider the weight of the dough they consider the weight of the cooked bread, but the mass and volume are completely different. Even though there is very little water left in bread, that doesn't change the fact that you have to measure and add a lot of water to it to make the dough. the water added is not dependent upon how much water will be left AFTER baking, it's the measure of water before baking is important.

Seriously, it is much simpler to just measure as many of your foods possible in the raw state before cooking. It will prevent having too many calories from changes in volume and mass.

and as I said before the exception would be if the food is already cooked, and there was no way to have measured it before, as in canned spinach, then you'd just have to go by the canned label data.

[Dreamchaser]

Metqa - Wow, thanks again for taking so much time to explain everything in detail!

Originally Posted by metqa

Seriously, it is much simpler to just measure as many of your foods possible in the raw state before cooking. It will prevent having too many calories from changes in volume and mass.

I totally agree! After thinking about it (way too much I might add ), I have finally come to this conclusion too.

Weighing and tracking the foods raw is definitely the way for me to go. I'll only do different with the canned foods, as you suggested, and then I'll get the info off of the nutrition label and enter it into ******.

I can see now that weighing and tracking everything raw is much, much simpler, easier and it's always consistent. There are way too many variables and inconsistencies, too much effort and far too much confusion and stress when you try to do it the other way. Plus I don't ever have to worry about if I'm going over on my calories this way......perfect!

Maybe later on I'll get to the point where I don't feel the need to weigh anything except the protein, like some do. But for now, in the beginning, I just feel better weighing everything and using ******. It's still going to be super simple for me though so that's cool!

Oh man, I am so glad I'm not going to be stressing over this any more!! Thanks to everyone who responded and helped me to figure this out! You guys are great!

[metqa]

Great Attitude. You are right about getting the hang of eyeballing it. after a while you'll be able to pick up an apple and know within 10g the approximate weight and you'll know how many sticks of celery is the amount you need.You'll soon realize that 100g of lettuce is plenty but 100g of cucumber is pidly But I think that clarity only comes from diligent weighing to begin with. and it needn't be stressful.

I do hope this round goes smoothly for you. and don't forget to check out the recipe thread, there are plenty of P2 recipes to choose from. At the start of the thread, many of the recipes are labeled either P2 or P3, just glance through and skip the P3/P4 recipes and copy the P2 ones and try them out.
Warning, many of the recipes I tried have lots of ethnic spices and you might have to go shopping . I'm thinking of making some P2 recipes just because many are cool salads and it's SO hot today.

Ja Ne! Have a Great Day!

[Dreamchaser]

Originally Posted by metqa

Great Attitude. You are right about getting the hang of eyeballing it. after a while you'll be able to pick up an apple and know within 10g the approximate weight and you'll know how many sticks of celery is the amount you need.You'll soon realize that 100g of lettuce is plenty but 100g of cucumber is pidly But I think that clarity only comes from diligent weighing to begin with. and it needn't be stressful.

I do hope this round goes smoothly for you. and don't forget to check out the recipe thread, there are plenty of P2 recipes to choose from. At the start of the thread, many of the recipes are labeled either P2 or P3, just glance through and skip the P3/P4 recipes and copy the P2 ones and try them out.
Warning, many of the recipes I tried have lots of ethnic spices and you might have to go shopping . I'm thinking of making some P2 recipes just because many are cool salads and it's SO hot today.

Ja Ne! Have a Great Day!

I printed out those awesome recipes and have been looking through them. I am definitely going to try some of them out!