If you’re counting calories or tracking your food intake, a food scale is going to make your life MUCH easier.
These are some real life examples I tested and measured out. On the left is the serving sized based on the weight, and on the right is a serving sized based on a scoop or measuring cup.
As you can see, they’re not quite the same.
Nutrition labels will always display a weight measurement next to the serving size. That weight will ALWAYS be the most accurate.
Think about it… if a serving size is 13 tortilla chips, the chances are slim that every single time you grab 13 chips, they’re going to be the same exact size. But if you base a serving on the weight instead, it will always be accurate. Maybe it’s 13 chips one time, but another time it’s only 9 chips because they’re larger.
The same idea applies to all food.
In the peanuts example in the graphic above, using a 1/4 cup measuring cup resulted in a serving that was nearly 50% larger than an actual serving size.
If you’re counting your calories, that’s a quick 70 calories that are unaccounted for.
Sure, that’s not a huge amount of calories by any means. But if you’re making these errors throughout the day, that can start to add up, and it could very well be a contributing factor why you’re not seeing the progress you think you should be seeing.
This is not to say that you HAVE to weigh your food by any means. It’s just one possible tool in a long list of options. It very well may not be right for you!
But if you’re new to all of this and learning to count calories or track your intake, I highly recommend giving a food scale a try to help get you started.
Weighing out portions at first will help you to be able to more accurately estimate your portions going forward so you don’t need to rely on it forever!
For me, food scales are a necessity. I’m not currently tracking my intake, but when it comes to baking, I ALWAYS rely on weights to be as precise as possible.
