Calorie Counting Help For A Cook

FernGitt

Hi. I'm a total noob. Just found the myfitnesspal app 3 days ago. It's not always easy for me to log what I'm eating because I'm a cook and make almost everything from scratch. It's extremely tedious to log every ingredient I'm putting into a dish and it's equally hard to find what I'm making in the database. (Many of my dishes are ethnic foods from different countries.) There's got to be an easier way to do this. Am I doing something wrong or missing something? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

jennybearlv

MFP has a feature for creating recipes. You can also save a meal if you normally eat a few dishes together. Huge time savers, though still tedious to create the recipes in the first place. Also, once you log a food it is stored in your recent or frequent histories making it easier to find it again.

seska422

Don't use homemade dishes from the database because you have no idea how they were made or the ratio of ingredients. Other database entries need to be double-checked for accuracy the first time you use them or you can enter the foods you use yourself into My Foods and not share with the database.

You can build your own recipes or meals in MyFitnessPal.

Do you have a food scale? That would help a lot. Put a plate on the scale and tare it (zero it out) and then add an ingredient and write down how much that ingredient weighs. Tare the scale and add the next ingredient and write down the weight. Repeat until you've weighed everything.

I know it sounds like a lot of work and it is at the beginning. However, after you get some practice, it gets faster and easier.

FernGitt

Yes I do have a food scale and have been using it for a few years now. Looks like I have a lot of data entry to do.

mweckler

I have the same issue. I tend to just try to find something in the database that closely resembles what I have made if I am on a time crunch, otherwise I go in and add item by item which can be a pain. But if you use the mobile app and the barcode scanner that helps to make it a quicker process. Also if you know what you are going to make ahead of time on a break or slow time start entering the data in then.

Where are you a cook at? I ask because I am an Executive Chef myself.

RAinWA

I love the recipe builder - once it's in there it's so easy to tweak a dish every time I make it. I will confess though that I don't log herbs and spices. Most of the time I add those as I go depending on how the dish tastes, looks, etc. so my measurement is "some" and I have not found a way to accurately log "some" yet.

choupetteL

I never get the recipe builder to work from scratch,so I find a similar recipe online,import it and then tweak away. (add ingredients,subtract,reapportion,etc) PITA but it is working and it gets much,much easier the more you use it. Best of luck!

Ready2Rock206

The recipe builder is great. There can be a bit of a learning curve but once you get used to it, it takes no time at all.

ShammersPink

It gets easier, because once you have used an ingredient, it will be saved in your list, and easier to find again. So it's worth making sure you find an accurate ingredient the first time, for future reference.

The bugger is, if you use a huge variety of ingredients, as I do, they fall off the bottom of my list if I haven't used them in a while.