Estimating Calories

elizabethcurtis1996

Hey guys! Sorry if this is in the wrong place. I live at home and my dad makes a lot of homemade meals. Obviously he won't calorie count his ingredients for me So was wondering what do you guys do when it comes to logging food or meals that you don't know the exact calories for?

janejellyroll

Could you tell you the ingredients so you could calorie count it yourself?

DemoraFairy

I had this problem after I graduated from uni and started living at home, and I knew the dinners my mum was making were not going to be low in calories. You could try eating less the rest of the day if it's only one meal he's making (I only had dinner with my family, so ate as little as I could before then), or you could ask for smaller portions, or try to do more exercise to try to offset it. You could also look in the fridge beforehand to get an idea of how many calories the ingredients are.

maroonmango211

Could you ask him for the recipe and then put it in the recipe creator on MFP? or try putting in your diary what a serving of each ingredient would be (more time consuming to do over and over again in the long run though).

ETA: spelling error....

elizabethcurtis1996

Good ideas guys! Unfortunately not sure what he uses as he tends to make it with whatever he's got, not helpful I know haha

StaciMarie1974

Avoid heavy creams/sauces. Try to stick to (mostly) grilled/baked meats. Ask that he moderate his use of butter, cooking oils. Or eat raw veggies instead of some cooked sides, as you can at least control to the extent you know there are no extra ingredients added. And beyond that be wary of portion sizes.

Your ticker says you have 70 pounds to lose. The more you have to lose, the more your body burns thru daily activity. This means you can offset the estimation of calories in, somewhat, by being more active. It will get harder, and accuracy become more important, as you get closer to your goal. (Because a smaller body burns less.)

elizabethcurtis1996

Good idea not sure why my ticker says that I only have 10 to go

PeachyPlum

Could you volunteer to help with dinner? Or to cook a few nights a week?

At least on the nights you cooked or helped, you'd know what was going into the food.

robynmoosehead

I had to move back in with my parents for nine months a while back. They're both very overweight and my mother (the cook) has a habit of making even the most simple of foods calorie laden.
If possible, do what I did and offer to cook dinner a few times a week. After a month or so, I was deciding the meals and cooking every night. It meant I had control. My parents even ended up preferring some of my dishes and requesting them. It took a bit of time but they really came round to understanding what and why I was doing what I was doing.

wonko221

First thing you may want to do is snoop the fridge and pantry. Figure out what he generally cooks with. Once you know his staple ingredients, you can find per-serving nutritional information for those.

Then volunteer to help him cook. Pay attention to how much he uses, and reconstruct his recipe in MFP. Look at the finished dish, and estimate the number of servings according to your normal portion.

You should be able to find a functional estimate that provides more value than wild-*kitten* guessing, even if it falls short of measuring each ingredient yourself.