Account for not eating the whole thing?

New to this site.  How do most people track their food if they don't eat the whole thing?  I rarely clean my plate.  Just wondering how everyone here counts their calories when the full serving size isn't eaten.

Do you fill your plate with serving sized portions? I always measure things out and just log the whole serving size into calorie-count, even if I don't eat it all. I dont add spices and gum to my log and my reasoning is that by maybe leaving a bit on my plate of a serving size i logged into my daily food diary, everything balances out.

I do the same thing.  I record whole servings rather than exactly what I eat. I like to over calculate that way I know for sure I'm under.

I use a kitchen scale to measure how many ounces of each item I put on my plate. If I end up adding more to my plate, I can just measure how many ounces more and add it on. If I don't want to finish what I've taken, I measure how many ounces of each item are left on my plate and subtract it from what I measured in the start.

I know it sounds like a time-consuming hassle, but in my opinion the accuracy is worth it. It prevents myself from eating more than I log, which slows weight loss; and it prevents myself from logging more than I eat, which deprives my body of the needed calories.

And when it comes to packaged foods or purchased drinks or restaurant dishes (or anything that is not measured on a scale in my home), I try to guess accurately, but usually log a little more than what I guess I consumed [just to be safe]. (For example, if I think I ate half the serving, I might log .75 serving instead of .5 serving).

Like you blackrosesred, I weigh my food before, and if I don't finish it, I subtract that amount.  Weighing food is so handy.   

I'm borred at night so that's when i do most of the posting and I pretty much always finish what i prepare. However if the serving is odd sized to what is here i do my best guess. I messured my guesses later and i've gotten pretty good at it.

if you know that what was originally on your plate is a single serving, and you don't eat all of it, then when you log it change the serving size. for example just this morning i finished the apple slices my boys didn't eat last night, which was about 1/3 of an apple. so i pulled up apples, selected the one i wanted, and changed the serving size to .33

i prefer not to over estimate my intake, because if my log shows i'm at my intake level (even when i'm not really) i don't want to feel guilty about eating. it's hard enough limiting myself to 1300.

good luck!

I hardly ever don't finish what's on my plate, but if I leave anything I'll usually just record everything on the plate and I'll know I haven't over-eaten

Have you tried cooking and serving less?...  If you never finish what's on the plate, smaller portions would be less wasteful.  

The Food Log is great for that.  You can use fractional amounts when recording your calories.  If you have half a hamburger, just put .5 serving in your log entry.