My Weight Loss Toolbox: Digital Food Scale that Weighs in Grams

Food/Calorie Journal
Scale
Walking App
Meal Calendar
Digital Food Scale that Weighs in Grams
Weekly, Detailed, Shopping List
Walking Buddy (My Daughter & My Dogs)
Yeti 36oz Rambler
Walking Shoes and Walking Socks

Let’s explore these one at a time.

Who likes counting calories?  Who likes measuring meals, weighing things out – doing, what I call, “kitchen math.”  I do not think anyone really likes doing it.  It is tedious, boring, alarming (really??  That’s what 28g of peanuts looks like?!) and it takes way too much time.  On Taco Tuesday, my husband can usually have a couple of his tacos made and eaten before I have readied my taco salad.  With all the measuring and calculating of calorie and writing down ingredients, it takes me a while to build my meal.  But I do it because I need to be accountable.  I need to set up guidelines for myself to stay healthy.

At first, I was measuring by volume.  I would use cups and tablespoons.  2 tablespoons of salad dressing is a very frustrating thing to measure out, volume wise.  That, and peanut butter.  I felt like half of my dressing or butter was left in the measuring spoon!  Then I would have to clean it up – yay, more dishes.  And I found ways of cheating – I always do.  I had different shaped measuring spoons – still technically the same volume, but one was deeper than the other, thus the surface area was lesser or greater, depending on the spoon, and I could technically, “accidently,” get more dressing on one tablespoon over the other.  Really?  It was crazy.  So, my husband purchased a food scale.  At first, I tried using it in ounces.  However, we quickly learned that measuring everything in grams is a bit more accurate.  Most foods are packaged by grams as well.

I highly recommend getting a digital food scale.  I have only used my scale, by Nourish.  It has a toggle button for ounces and grams.  It has a tare function.  And it has the ability to program many foods into it to show instant nutrition information (and I think some are already pre-programed).  However, I have never used this function, I do my calculations by hand, but I still recommend the scale.

I weigh the food out by grams and then I either use the packaging details to calculate my calories, or if I am eating foods such as produce which usually does not come with a nutrition facts label, I use my cheat sheet that I put together.  Several years back, I think close to 5 years ago, (2016) I wrote out a list of common foods that I or the family consume, and I Googled what the calories were in 100 grams of that food.  I wrote it down and literally carry it with me, as I transfer it to my food journal as I start a new one.  I have much of it memorized now, but I need it for reference “de temps en temps” (from time to time).

I do not really have much else to say on this topic.  Measure your food.  Accurately.  Do not eyeball it – not while you are at home.  Using this scale has taught me what many serving sizes look like, and thus when I am out away from my home and scale (I take both of our scales, food and bathroom, with us when we travel) I can kind of guess how many calories are on my plate or on the serving tray at an event as I grab them.  It makes parties and get togethers a bit more eye opening and accountable.

How do you stay accountable while counting calories?  What do you measure?  What do you skip?  When I am losing weight, I weigh everything – including lettuce.  When I am maintaining, I weigh the high calorie stuff – dressing, beans, nuts, dairy – and I eyeball the produce.  Let us all know in the comments!  Have a great one, everyone!