Measuring my food has been the change in my fitness routine that has made the biggest difference. Before measuring I was completely off on my portion sizes and when I stopped measuring for awhile, my portions slowly got larger and larger. Without measuring, my food journal is a guess at best and can’t accurately show my nutrition or calorie intake.
Simple kitchen measuring cups and spoons will work, but if you are really serious about weight loss, you need a digital scale. You can get one from ebay for only $7-$10 shipped. I use mine for postage also, so I purchased a scale that would go up to 5 lbs. For food alone, a 2 lb scale is fine. Make sure your scale measures in both ounces and grams, is accurate to .1 and has a tare button. It can be really small, I’ll show you why in a bit.
When using measuring cups and spoons, make sure they are leveled off and the food is not packed down. It’s easy to hide extra calories in a measuring cup by smooshing or piling the food on. I’ve done it lots of times, but when my weight plateaus there’s nothing to blame but myself. Measuring cups are better than not measuring at all, and I still use them from time to time. If you don’t have a digital scale yet, use them until you can get one.
A small scale is not a problem. You can make the platform bigger if you put your empty plate, bowl, or skillet on the scale and hit the “tare” button. The scale should read “0” again. Then slowly add one ingredient at a time, checking weight with each addition. Hit tare after each ingredient addition and the scale will go back to zero allowing you to measure each ingredient separately.
What About PrePackaged Foods?
Convenient and easy to figure nutrition facts, prepackaged foods can seem a dieter’s friend. But I recently learned from reading CalorieKing that the weight on the package is a minimum only. Often the packages hold more food than they say they do which means they have more calories too. It’s a good idea to meausure your snacks without the wrapper on your digital scale and adjust the serving size if necessary.
It’s even better to prepare your own food at home and package it up for convenience. You get better ingredients, nutrition, and complete control over the serving size.
