Feeding multiple people with meals from scratch - how to keep calorie counts accurate?

ksenya03

I'm trying to tighten up my logging and one of the issues I'm running into is how to keep accurate track of calories from home cooked meals. I cook from scratch frequently - filing in the recipe creator on MFP is time consuming but not that difficult. The difficult part comes in determining portion sizes as the app seems to be set up for how many people the recipe feeds. This is where it gets difficult for me. I usually cook for both my husband and myself. However, the two of us have dramatically different calorie requirements (He's tall, thin, and works in manual labor and trying to gain weight. I'm short, overweight, a full-time student and trying to lose weight). So while my recipe may feed 2 people, he's usually eating at least twice the portion size I am.

Anyone have any tips for how they manage this? Is there a feature I'm missing that would let me use measuring tools or weights for greater accuracy?

sammyliftsandeats

Weigh out all your ingredients in the recipe builder and then weigh your finished product. The number of grams is your number of servings. So if you log 100g of the dish, you log it as 100 servings. That way, you are accurate with your portion and your husband can have a bigger one without wrecking your count.

rutzsa

Try weighing your completed dish in grams and enter that number as your total servings. Then use serving size 1 gram and number of servings is the portion you weigh/ serve yourself. If I didnt explain that clearly enough , let me know and I will try again

rutzsa

Guess I didnt type fast enough, sorry for the double explanation.

ksenya03

Thanks! This helps a lot.

SusanMFindlay

That method is great. My alternative is slightly less accurate but I find it easier for dealing with things like casseroles, frittatas, lasagnas, etc.

I enter each meal as "6 servings". Usually, my husband has twice as much food as me, so if the meal is just one dinner, I log me eating 2 servings (which is one third of the total amount). If the meal will cover two dinners (more common), I log me eating 1 serving each night. Or I have a quarter, he has half and the kids split a quarter; that's 1.5 servings for me.

If I don't know how many times we'll be eating the item, I do something like the method above except that I set 1 serving = 100 g (because the huge numbers of servings are hard to get to in the Recipe Builder).

For meat + starch + veg style meals, I just weigh each component as it hits my plate.

elisa123gal

An option would be to keep your meals simple.

beaglady

elisa123gal wrote: »

An option would be to keep your meals simple.

Not a fun option, though. If the idea is to modifying one's eating as a permanent lifestyle change, rather than a limited time 'diet', eliminating a lot of variety from food options would be a deal breaker for me.

ashjongfit

Logging each gram and 1 serving is an amazing thing! I like to throw everything into serving dishes and place on the table for everyone to scoop out their portions and it used to be a nightmare. I keep my scale near my plate and bam accurate logging every time.

Francl27

I do the grams = number of servings thing too. Super easy.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

ashjongfit wrote: »

Logging each gram and 1 serving is an amazing thing! I like to throw everything into serving dishes and place on the table for everyone to scoop out their portions and it used to be a nightmare. I keep my scale near my plate and bam accurate logging every time.

Yep - this is exactly what I do and it was a game changer for me. Yes, inputting the new recipes takes a little time, but it's worth it.