Losing weight often involves making changes to your diet and lifestyle. One tool that can be surprisingly effective in this process is weighing your food. By accurately measuring your portions, you can gain a better understanding of your eating habits, control your calorie intake, and ultimately achieve your weight loss goals.
The Role of Calorie Counting in Weight Management
Calorie counting can be a useful strategy for weight management, helping you understand your eating patterns and identify ways to lower your calorie intake. By recording what you eat on paper, online, or in an app, you can create and maintain a calorie deficit, which is essential for weight loss. Some research suggests that recording your food intake can be a helpful addition to a weight management plan. For example, a study from 2019 and a 2021 research review suggest that tracking health factors - like weight, diet, and physical activity - is consistently associated with weight loss.
Calorie counting may aid in weight loss by helping you:
- Understand your eating patterns
- Identify an approximate baseline to work from and compare with when you’re trying to reduce the total number of calories you eat per day
- Adjust your food choices and motivate you to keep working toward your goals
Creating a Calorie Deficit for Weight Loss
A calorie deficit - consuming fewer calories than your body burns - is generally necessary for weight loss. Food and beverages are the primary sources of the calories that your body needs to function. Those calories come from one of the three macronutrients: carbohydrates (carbs), protein, and fat.
Once your body’s immediate energy needs are met, any excess energy is stored for future use. Some of it is stored as glycogen, which comes from carbohydrates, in your muscles and liver, and the rest of it is stored as fat. Therefore, if you eat more calories than your body needs, you will gain weight, much of it from fat.
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If the calories you get from your diet are insufficient to cover your immediate needs, your body draws on its energy stores to compensate. This state, known as being in a “calorie deficit,” is what causes you to lose weight. But keep in mind, when an excessive calorie deficit occurs due to dietary restrictions or intense physical activity, your body will also pull from protein stores and break down your muscles in addition to burning body fat for fuel.
Why Weighing Food Matters
While calorie counting can be a useful tool, it's important to be accurate. This is where weighing food comes in. Many people underestimate or overestimate their portion sizes, leading to inaccurate calorie counts. Weighing food gives you a more accurate understanding of portion sizes, especially when it comes to calorie-dense foods.
Easter's Experience with Weighing Food
One example of the effectiveness of weighing food comes from Easter, who used a small kitchen scale to weigh all his food and input the weight into the MyFitnessPal app on his phone, which calculated the exact number of calories in the food. Easter realized he previously didn’t have an accurate understanding of the portion sizes he was eating, especially when it came to calorie-dense foods.
“I thought I was eating like 2,600 or 2,700 calories [a day], and it was a lot more than that,” he explains.
He said weighing his food helped him see that the snacks he ate between meals were adding unnecessary calories too.
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“When you have to weigh everything, you realize that all adds up, and some days it was as much as 500 calories for me,” he says. “That’s enough to really move a dial in terms of weight gain or weight loss.”
Benefits of Weighing Food
- Accuracy: Weighing food provides a more accurate measurement of portion sizes compared to estimating by volume.
- Awareness: It increases awareness of how much you are actually eating, helping you identify areas where you can reduce your calorie intake.
- Control: It gives you more control over your calorie intake, making it easier to create and maintain a calorie deficit.
- Understanding: It helps you understand the calorie content of different foods, allowing you to make informed choices about what you eat.
How to Weigh Your Food
- Purchase a kitchen scale: Look for a digital scale that is easy to use, has a tare function, and can measure small amounts accurately.
- Weigh all your food: Place your food on the scale and record the weight in grams or ounces.
- Input the results into a calorie tracking app: Use an app like MyFitnessPal to calculate the number of calories in the food based on its weight.
Creating a Healthy Eating Pattern
To lose weight, Easter cut his calories to 2,500 a day. He developed easy go-to meals for breakfast and lunch that made the process easier.
“There were definitely days where I resented that scale and I wanted to throw it on the ground, but to make things easier I would tend to fall into patterns and eat the same thing every day,” he says.
The 30-year-old found that sticking to meats, vegetables, potatoes and nuts helped him feel full throughout the day. He said potatoes in particular helped him stay satisfied.
“Most nights when I’m home weeknights I’ll usually do potatoes with chicken and some vegetables and then I’ll put sour cream on the potatoes and stuff like that, but now I just know don’t take too much [sour cream] because those kinds of fats are calorie dense,” he says.
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Maintaining a Balanced Weight
Easter dropped 10 pounds in about 3 months. He said that weighing all of his meals is no longer necessary. But he has a much better understanding of what and how much he can eat to prevent the weight from coming back.
“I found a sweet spot for how much I should eat,” he said. “So at the end I was eating about 2,950 calories, which is a lot, but I was staying at 175 pounds. My weight wasn’t fluctuating at all, which sort of told [my nutritionist] that’s an ideal amount of food for [me] to be eating at 175 pounds.”
Tips for Success
- Start with a food diary: Before you start weighing your food, keep a food diary for a week to understand your current eating habits.
- Set SMART goals: Once you've identified areas for improvement, set one or two healthy eating goals for yourself using the SMART goal format (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based).
- Create go-to meals: Develop easy, healthy meals that you can prepare regularly to save time and ensure you're eating nutritious foods.
- Focus on whole foods: Prioritize whole, minimally processed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, nuts, seeds, beans, and legumes.
- Be mindful of calorie-dense foods: Pay attention to portion sizes of calorie-dense foods like nuts, cheese, and oils.
- Don't be afraid to indulge occasionally: Processed foods can still be part of a healthful eating plan in moderation, but it’s important to choose foods that are nutrient-dense and low in unhealthy additives like salt and sugar.
The Importance of Food Quality
It’s essential to distinguish between quantity and quality. Even foods that have the same quantity of calories can be of different nutritional quality and can have very different effects on your health. Also, different foods can impact your metabolism, hormone levels, and appetite differently.
For example, eating 100 calories worth of donuts may not diminish your hunger as effectively as eating 100 calories from apples due to the relative amounts of refined carbs, sugar, and fiber in the donuts. Therefore, a donut may increase the likelihood of eating excessively later in the day and lower the likelihood of achieving the calorie deficit needed for weight loss.
When it comes to health, 100 calories from apples will affect your health differently than 100 calories from donuts. Therefore, it’s important to avoid picking foods solely based on their calorie content. Instead, make sure you also consider their nutrient content.
Focus on Nutrient-Dense Foods
In general, it’s best to focus on whole or minimally processed foods. Try to fill your plate with:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Whole grains
- Lean proteins
- Nuts and seeds
- Beans and legumes
Potential Drawbacks of Calorie Counting
Though tracking your calorie intake may be an effective tool for weight loss, it might not be suitable for everyone. In particular, it may not be recommended for those with a history of disordered eating, as it could foster an unhealthy relationship with food and worsen symptoms.
According to an older study involving 105 people diagnosed with an eating disorder, 75% reported using an online tool to count their calories and 73% noted that they felt this contributed to their eating disorder. In a 2018 study, counting calories and self-weighing more frequently were also linked to increased eating disorder severity among college students.
Therefore, if you find that counting your calories or tracking your food intake leads to feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety, it may be best to discontinue these practices. Practicing intuitive eating, which involves listening to your body and eating when you feel hungry, may be a better alternative for those with a history of disordered eating.
Alternatives to Weighing Food
If weighing food feels too restrictive or triggers negative emotions, there are other ways to manage your portion sizes:
- Use smaller plates and bowls: This can help you visually reduce the amount of food you're eating.
- Practice mindful eating: Pay attention to your hunger and fullness cues, and eat slowly and deliberately.
- Follow the Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate method: This method recommends filling half your plate with fruits and vegetables, one-quarter with lean protein, and one-quarter with whole grains.
- Work with a registered dietitian: A dietitian can help you develop a personalized eating plan that meets your needs and preferences.
Weighing Ingredients for Kidney-Friendly Cooking
But did you know that most people around the world weigh their ingredients? By using a kitchen scale, you can measure your ingredients by weight (grams or ounces), which is a much more accurate method of measurement - and a gamechanger if you follow a kidney-friendly meal plan!
Weighing your ingredients will help ensure that the recipes you make support your health. Here are three reasons to buy a kitchen scale and start weighing your ingredients today
Weighing food is more accurate than measuring by volume
No matter how experienced you are in the kitchen, the cup of ingredients you weigh today will not weigh the same tomorrow. Why? Volume is a measurement of how much space an item fills, and that depends on the size of the item. In the case of food, the size of your ingredients can vary greatly from piece to piece. Just think of the last time you went grocery shopping for a "small" tomato. What exactly is a "small" tomato? Weight, on the other hand will always be the same - no matter what. One hundred grams of an ingredient will always be 100 grams. Just remember to follow the recipe's instructions when you weigh your food. The weight of an ingredient can change depending on how it is used in the recipe - with or without skin, stems or bones; before or after it is diced or grated; and when it is raw versus after it is cooked.
- Using tomatoes as an example again, there are 252 mg of potassium and 26.9 mg of phosphorus in 100 grams of tomatoes. If you use a cup to measure your tomatoes and end up with 25 grams more than the recipe calls for, that might not seem like a big difference. But even just 25 grams of extra tomatoes adds 63 mg of potassium and 6.7 mg of phosphorus to the recipe. Using a scale to weigh your ingredients makes the measurements more accurate and helps you better control your nutrient intake. And, bonus - the recipe will likely turn out better. This will also allow you to eat a greater variety of foods, including small amounts of foods higher in certain nutrients, without worrying about going over your recommended levels.
- Weighing ingredients is a faster, easier and cleaner way to cook
Our recipes in Kidney Kitchen use a variety of vegetables. Preparing different amounts of all ingredients and using multiple measuring tools to do so likely means you're dirtying a lot of dishes in the process. The beauty of weighing your vegetables is that you don't need several measuring cups or spoons to make sure you have the right amount of each ingredient in a recipe. You just need one tool: a kitchen scale. The kidney-friendly ingredient amounts in Kidney Kitchen recipes have all been carefully weighed when creating them, so you can recreate them yourself with confidence.
You'll be surprised by how fast and easy it is to weigh one ingredient after the other by simply using your scale's tare function in between each one. To use the tare function, place a bowl on the scale and then press the "tare" button, which removes the bowl's weight from the total. You then add your ingredients one by one to the bowl, pressing tare in between each. With your handy scale, you can more quickly measure out all the ingredients in the filling for our Columbia Fish Tamale recipe, and only get one item dirty in the process - your bowl, which you need for containing ingredients while preparing the dish anyway!
Tip: It is easier to add more of an ingredient than to take out extra from the bowl, especially if you are measuring all ingredients in the same bowl. To avoid accidental overages of ingredients that are not easy to remove, you can also measure all your ingredients individually in a smaller bowl, then move them one by one to a larger mixing bowl once you get the right weight. Cleaning two bowls is still easier than cleaning a bunch of measuring cups and spoons.
How to choose the perfect kitchen scale
Now that you know a kitchen scale is your new best friend, how do you know which one to buy? There are many different kitchen scales on the market in all different price ranges, so here are some tips for choosing the right one for you:
- Make sure it has a tare button
- Make sure it is capable of measuring small amounts, like ⅛ ounce or 1 gram, so you know you are accurately controlling your nutrient intake
- Look for a scale that is easy to use
- Look for a scale with a digital display that is easy to read, with large numbers and backlights
- Look for a scale that is thin and cordless
- Look for a stainless steel or hard plastic scale, so it is easy to clean
- Look for a scale that is 9x6 inches or smaller, so it is easy to store away when you are not using it
Kitchen scale prices can vary, but they are generally within reach for most budgets. One you add this very useful appliance to your kitchen, you'll prepare more delicious recipes with the confidence that you are eating the exact amount of nutrients that our Kidney Kitchen recipes call for.
The Importance of Portion Control
It’s no secret that accurately measuring portion sizes is an important piece of the weight loss puzzle, but it can be difficult to know what a “serving” is when you’re eyeballing your meal. “Many of us, dietitians included, have a hard time estimating portion sizes. Food scales are the most accurate way to measure your food, says Sarah Alsing, RD, owner of Delightfully Fueled in Anaheim, California. It can be extremely eye-opening to weigh portions, Alsing says. She recommends a kitchen scale particularly for weight loss beginners who are still familiarizing with what a serving size actually looks like.
When to Use a Food Scale
Rosales encourages her weight loss clients to use a food scale once they have mastered some initial concepts, like knowing what to eat and when to eat, but before really homing in on portion control. “Depending on where a client is in their weight loss journey, I may recommend a food scale as a tool.
Benefits of Measuring Food
Measuring your food also helps ensure you’re eating enough. That is important both for your overall health and to support your weight loss goals. Rosales says her clients often underestimate their portion sizes of certain foods, such as pasta. Alsing says measuring nutritious foods like chicken helps you to track your protein amounts accurately. Measuring calorie-dense foods like chips is also a useful exercise, since just a small handful of chips may actually be a few servings’ worth. “Knowing how much you are eating will help you know how many calories you consume, which can help you lose weight,” says Alsing.
How to Use a Food Scale
A food scale can be used in a variety of ways to track calories and other metrics. You can also use your food scale when you want to accurately understand what a manufacturer’s portion size is. For example, if you’re making overnight oats, you can look at the nutrition facts label on the side of your oatmeal container. You’ll see a serving size followed by a weight in grams.
Choosing a Food Scale
Many professional and home chefs like using a digital scale when cooking and baking. Measuring cups are less precise. When picking a food scale, you have two options: digital or mechanical. Digital ones are more common. Since you’ll be using it for food, go for something easy to clean - typically one that allows you to place your food in a bowl or plate - then get an accurate measurement, thanks to what’s called the tare function. That key feature, which is available on most scales, is essential. What this means is you can zero out the scale after placing a container or previous ingredient in it. For example, tare the scale to zero, weigh your first ingredient to the desired amount, tare it again to zero, and then add your next ingredient. Repeat this process until your recipe or meal is complete. Some scales come with a bowl or have other bells and whistles, so find the one that’s right for your needs - as long as it has that tare setting.
Long-Term Use of a Food Scale
You may not need to use a food scale forever, Rosales says. She recommends using yours until you feel confident in your ability to gauge portion sizes.