How do you measure your intake when you make a meal for a family or group?

millerdelorme

Hi All,

I'm having a hard time keeping track of what I eat at dinner time with my family. When I'm eating during the day, I have an easier time because I'm making a portion just for myself. However, when I make dinner for my family, I don't want to have to make two separate meals. Is there any helpful advice on how to track your consumption when you make one large meal and eat a portion of it? For example, I feel silly because I made spaghetti sauce while keeping track of everything in it, then measured how many cups of sauce was in the total batch. When I measured out my portion, I divided it by the whole batch. This seems a little daunting for every dinner...

Thank you!

KarenJanine

Use the recipe builder feature on MFP. Enter your ingredients and the number of portions it makes, then it will calculate your calorie/nutritional data for a single serving. It can be a little time consuming initially, but the info will be stored so next time you cook the same dinner you'll just be able to add a serving straight from your MFP recipes.

cbhubbybubble

Yep, recipe builder...or sometimes I just keep track of the total ingredient amounts and divide it by whatever before I log it. It is a bit of work either way, but you get used to it after a while

millerdelorme

Okay, thanks all. I'll get the hang of it eventually!

SueInAz

If you aren't using the Recipe section in MFP yet I find it helpful. You add all of the ingredients and then enter the number of servings it makes. Then you just add a serving in your diary. Frankly, I do sometimes just guess my portion size when I serve myself but I mostly measure out my portion.

Weighing food can be more helpful than measuring it. You can certainly weigh something like spaghetti sauce, too. Weigh the pot you're going to make the sauce in while it's empty and write down its weight. When it is done cooking, you can weigh the full pot and subtract the weight of the empty pot to get the total weight of the ingredients. Then you can weigh your portion and divide to get the calories for your serving. This way is much easier, and less messy, than measuring the amount of cups.

millerdelorme

Thank you SueInAz! I really like that idea. I'll have to get myself a scale. I'm going nuts with all these measuring cups and spoons, hahaha.

JenniferIsLosingIt

See I am so guilty of just typing in what I made and going with what sounds reasonable calorie wise. I have been studying nutrition and portions for almost a year now, I am still losing...I know that there are hundreds on mfp who would criticize this action, but I am a believer in doing what works for you, soooo that is what I do. I have occasionally used the recipe builder, it is a great tool even if a little time consuming.

SoDamnHungry

Like others have said, recipe builder is great. You're bound to repeat your meals so once you've put most of the recipes you make in, it's easy!

SueInAz

jenjay8045 wrote: »

See I am so guilty of just typing in what I made and going with what sounds reasonable calorie wise. I have been studying nutrition and portions for almost a year now, I am still losing...I know that there are hundreds on mfp who would criticize this action, but I am a believer in doing what works for you, soooo that is what I do. I have occasionally used the recipe builder, it is a great tool even if a little time consuming.

The recipe builder is great for recipes you use fairly often. It can be time-consuming when you create the recipe but it sure saves a lot of time every other time you make that recipe. Something like homemade spaghetti sauce is going to be something you make often enough to make it worthwhile to enter in.

SueInAz

millerdelorme wrote: »

Thank you SueInAz! I really like that idea. I'll have to get myself a scale. I'm going nuts with all these measuring cups and spoons, hahaha.

You're welcome! Weighing is much more accurate than measuring. There was a person in here the other day asking whether you should pack the food into a measuring cup or fill it gently. That's exactly why weighing is more accurate. Most of the basic ingredients (those without an asterisk) have a 100 gram serving option. I usually have my scale set to grams as a result. It's easy to weigh out a 227 gram portion of Greek yogurt (one cup) into the container I'm going to eat it in and then enter it as 2.27 of 100 grams and I don't dirty a measuring cup in the process.

I even weigh things like peanut butter and salad dressing. The tare function on the scale makes this a snap and you aren't left with dirty measuring spoons and wasting the food that stuck to them.

Th3Ph03n1x

If you use recipes. A lot of online recipes have their nutrition and serving info on the page with the recipe. allrecipes almost always has it on their recipes. It's at the very bottom of the page now though below the reviews. Most of these are per serving calories just like on your food packaging.

Espressocycle

Log the recipe logger here and make sure your portion is accurate.

LeslieB042812

SueInAz wrote: »

If you aren't using the Recipe section in MFP yet I find it helpful. You add all of the ingredients and then enter the number of servings it makes. Then you just add a serving in your diary. Frankly, I do sometimes just guess my portion size when I serve myself but I mostly measure out my portion.

Weighing food can be more helpful than measuring it. You can certainly weigh something like spaghetti sauce, too. Weigh the pot you're going to make the sauce in while it's empty and write down its weight. When it is done cooking, you can weigh the full pot and subtract the weight of the empty pot to get the total weight of the ingredients. Then you can weigh your portion and divide to get the calories for your serving. This way is much easier, and less messy, than measuring the amount of cups.

That's a great tip! I hadn't thought of it, but I'm definitely going to start using this method. It would be so much easier than trying to measure out how many cups in a batch and much more accurate than guessing at dividing it up. Thanks!

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Francl27

Yep, it's a pain, that's why I don't make 'one pot meals' that often frankly.

Serah87

I got a small casserole dish and a small crock pot. That way I still eat what the family eats but I know exactly how many calories I eat.

kissa714

I dont cook but when i was at college and i would eat school food i would just estimate the calories and try to portion it better. typing in the food into MFP should give you pretty accurate calories. seems like a lot of work and stress to track every little ingredient.

runningagainstmyself

I personally either use the recipe builder, or if I already know how much of what, make sure you know the portions if you divide it equally among the people you're eating with, and adhere to that. If it something such as roast pork, for example, that you need to slice and don't know how much you're taking, get a digital scale that weighs both in grams and in oz. Then you will never not know what you are putting into your body.

millerdelorme

Thanks everyone! Lots of help here. I love it!

ashleycde

Calculate the total calories in the meal you make just as you would for a meal portioned for yourself, then divide the total calories by the amount of it you eat. You can either estimate (i.e., you served yourself and 3 others, plus have enough leftovers for maybe 2 more so you'd have a 6th of the total calories) or if you want a more accurate portion, you can weigh the meal in its entirety, then weigh the portion you consume, and divide that into the total portion to calculate your calorie consumption.