6 Common Food Tracking Mistakes

"A Small Banana", "A Large Apple", "5 Dates"

There is no standard when it comes to sizing. A small banana could be 15g of carbs or it could mean 25g of carbs.

Avoid generic entries, and use the food scale to log how many grams or ounces it is.

More often than not, measuring cups and spoons are WAY off compared to actual scale weight. This one is typically the most surprising for most people. Something as simple as "1/2 of oatmeal" can be 5-10 grams off on the scale.

Labels are based on weight and then companies round to serving sizes. Nut butter tends to be the biggest culprit here, it also helps to avoid overindulging or using a heaping serving.

Solution: Avoid measuring spoons or cups and instead weigh everything on the scale in grams or ounces.

Nutrition labels are always for raw data unless the app says otherwise. Meaning that if your chicken lists the serving size as 4 oz, it’s for 4 oz raw. Unless you bought precooked, of course.

Cooked and raw weight are not the same. When cooked the meat (or fish) loses water/moisture. Typically we see a loss of about 20-35% volume during cooking.

Common Serving Sizes:

2 oz cooked meat = 2.66 oz raw

4 oz cooked meat = 5.3 oz raw

6 oz cooked meat = 8oz raw

You have two choices when tracking cooked meat:

Use a cooked variation in your tracking app or calculate the cooked weight

*When first getting started, it is hard to know which "cooked weight" entries you can trust in your tracking app, and is typically safer to use a calculation.

Raw to Cooked = Raw Weight x 0.75

Cooked to Raw = Cooked weight / 0.75

As you gain experience, you can typically find a "cooked" option in the app you trust.

The same logic as the above meat tracking applies here, however you can typically find more trustworthy "cooked weight" options for things like yams, potatoes, and veggies.

If you wish to calculate these with an equation as well, the same math as above typically applies:

Raw to Cooked = Raw Weight x 0.75

Cooked to Raw = Cooked weight / 0.75

Whichever option you choose, if you keep it consistent it will work out for you regardless!

The best approach is to plan out your day ahead of time so your entries are already logged, maybe your food is even already cooked and you just have to eat. If you snack during the day or don't pre-plan, log it before or right after you eat it. Don't trust yourself to remember to log it later. If you eat it, log it.

When eating out, you're typically better off overestimating than underestimating. Most meals will have hidden calories you didn't even consider (butter, oil, etc). If you don't ask for any modifications, you can generically add about a tablespoon of butter to your meal out to help account for it. Unless portion sizes are given, you'll be left to your interpretation to decide how big the serving size was. Again it is better to overestimate here in most cases.

Secondly, break down each entry.

Instead of logging "Buritto"

Log: 4oz chicken, flour tortilla (be honest about the size), 2 tbs salsa, 1/4 cup cheese, 2 servings tortilla chips, etc."

When estimating while eating out, using measuring spoon/cup options is likely the easier option (since you are eyeballing).

One last tip for eating out:

If the total calories for the meal are given, you can also sort of make up the macros if needed.

Example: 700 calories in Seafood Paella (good luck constructing that one in My Fitness Pal).

You could approximate (based on how big the serving looked, how greasy it seemed, etc.)

30g protein = 120 calls (30 x 4)

80g carbs = 240 calls (80 x 4)

30g fat = 270 calls (30 x 9)

This makes 710 calories for the meal (close enough)

Now you can have better guidance as you enter your food in your tracking app, knowing you need to get to those numbers for the meal.

If you have My Fitness Pal premium, you can enter exact macros for a meal with the quick add feature without needing to add any foods. A "hack" we like to use for this instead of having premium is to enter a single macro instead... It's super easy!

Just search "Quick Macro" in My Fitness Pal and it will bring up "Macro - Protein", " Macro - Carbs", and "Macro - Fat". From here, you can then log the exact amount needed for each instead of trying to construct the meal to match the macros.