Tools For Accuracy

We are officially past the halfway mark in our nutrition challenge mini-series.  By this point, you should be starting to feel more comfortable when it comes to counting your macros. Now that you are building your flexible dieting confidence, we can start to dive into some small details we may have missed early on. In the beginning stages of flexible dieting our biggest concern is on hitting our numbers. Since this is our focus, there can be some things that may end up getting overlooked. Unfortunately down the road this can be what ultimately prevents us from reaching our goals. So if you are trying to go from lean to shredded, trying to lose your last 10 lbs of weight, or you are stuck in a weight loss rut measurement accuracy could be to blame.  Today we will discuss some tools for accuracy.

Weight or Volume?

How do you measure your food? If I had to choose between weight or volume, weight wins every time. A perfect example I give to justify this decision is in regards to my About Time Protein Pancakes.  At first, I used to always measure the pancake mix out by volume. Then one day I decided to weigh the 1/2 cup serving size of pancake mix instead of just relying on the volume alone. Turns out the 1/2 cup of pancake mix was actually 82 grams. As it was labelled on the package a 1/2 cup serving size was supposed to be 70 grams!  This was a difference of 1 gram of fat, 3 carbs, and 1 gram of protein. This may not seem like much but making little mistakes like this throughout the day most definitely adds up. Moral of the story, weigh it out!

Weighing meat. Should it be raw or cooked?

If it is possible I would weigh your meat raw. Nutritional information provided is for the meat in its raw form. When meat is cooked however, water and other juices evaporate out of the meat. This process changes the weight which means the weight of the meat cooked vs the same piece of meat raw will in fact differ. Also, be sure when you are entering meat into myfitnesspal you are picking the right nutritional information! Majority of the entries made in myfitnesspal are not even close to being accurate. I recommend doubling checking the info entered with Calorie King. For quick access. remember you can always use the info found in my Calorie King to create your own custom food entry in myfitnesspal.

Weighing Cooked Meat

I understand that weighing meat raw is not always possible. When it isn’t possible to do, there are other ways to find accurate information. The first and easiest way is to search in Calorie King for the meat’s cooked nutritional info. If that still doesn’t provide you with the info you need there is a way to weigh cooked meat for accuracy.

Well-Done Meat

When weighing well done meat there will be less water and weight in the final product. So therefore weigh the cooked piece of meat and then multiply it by 1.5. Then use the raw nutritional info with the new found weight.

 Rare Meat

When weighing rare meat there will be more water and juices still left behind in the meat. That means that the weight of the meat will not be altered drastically so you would only need to multiply by 1.1.

Somewhere In Between

Depending on how cooked your meat is you can use a range from 1.1 (rare)- 1.5 (well-done) to multiply the weight of the meat cooked. Just be sure you are using the meat’s raw nutritional information.

Use this week to start implementing these changes into your routine if you haven’t been doing so already. Use weight before volume and weigh meat raw rather than cooked. These little changes could very much so be just the answer you need to get you one step closer to reaching your goals!