There are certain foods I almost always weigh or measure and others that I almost never weigh or measure. In general, the higher the carb content of a food, the more important it is to know the exact amount you are eating. For instance, I always measure or weigh the potatoes, rice, or pasta I eat at dinner. I hardly ever measure the green beans. Of course, I don't weigh or measure my meat, unless it has had some carbohydrate "enhancement" such as meatloaf. I weigh baked potatoes after they are baked and figure 6 grams per ounce. I use a general rule that 1/2 cup of cooked potatoes, white rice, or pasta has 20 grams of carbohydrate. I know this is, perhaps, not exactly precise, but it saves my sanity and works out pretty well.
My life became much easier the day I realized that almost all bread has approximately 13 grams of carbohydrate per ounce. You see, my husband is a terrific bread baker and makes a large portion of our daily bread. He does it the old-fashioned way, without a bread machine. We were having a very hard time trying to convert all his recipes to "carbohydrate known". Especially since he often "invents" his own recipes as he goes. It was almost to the point that he was going to give up baking bread and we would be sentenced to eating grocery store bread because it comes with the nutritional information. We finally noticed that the calculations were coming in very close to 13 grams per ounce. At that point, I told him to put away the calculator and get out the yeast. Now I just weigh each slice of bread as I slice it off the loaf and figure the carbs based on the magic number 13. This works for those lovely bagels from the deli too. (My husband doesn't make bagels, he calls them "defective bread". I still love to eat them, though, and ignore his remarks!)
For me, the best part of pumping is carb counting. But without the pump, carb counting wouldn't be very practical for me. I attribute my improved diabetes control to the ability to count carbs and give precisely the amount of insulin I need. I hope that you will find the information in this article useful. As always, good health, and happy eating!