Logging and weekends

lperry1725

I'm not sure if this board was the best place to post but here goes.

I have two questions or areas for advice.
1. Weekends are the death of me. I wind up gaining back the same pound to pound a half by Monday that I just spent all week losing. I get the obvious just log and watch but I'm sure you all know it's not that easy. I'm a teacher so my meals are very structured during the week. Then comes the weekend and it all breaks down. I've already cut down on the going out. Which leads me to my 2ns thing.
2. I cook a lot. I go out to eat like once a week. I'm finding it difficult to log a lot of my meals. For example, last night I made this roasted red pepper sauce. It was fairly healthy. Yet I couldn't determine how to log it. If I do the ingredients individually then how am I supposed to d teeming how much I had. This also has a large part to do with why my weekends are falling apart because I don't know how to keep myself accountable if I can't count.

TimothyFish

Use the recipe tool to create an entry for the whole amount and then just log one serving (or however many servings you had).

lperry1725

TimothyFish wrote: »

Use the recipe tool to create an entry for the whole amount and then just log one serving (or however many servings you had).

I seriously didn't know that was on MFP. Thank you.

serindipte

The best way I've found to determine "however many servings" is to weigh the final product and then put the total grams as how many servings in the recipe builder. That way I can just enter the number of grams I ate as my servings number.

trigden1991

Unless you are consuming 3500 calories over your maintenance at the weekend, you are not gaining fat back. It is likely to be water weight.

__TMac__

Similar problem here, but I think I've solved it for myself. I address the weekend issue by saving about 100 of my calories daily during the week so I can eat a little more on the weekend, or just have a buffer for hard-to-log situations without worry. I exercise 6 days a week, and can usually just designate those earned calories for the weekend. Good luck!

jonjaxmom

I changed the day of my weekly weigh in from Mondays to Fridays. This way, if I have an little bit of a slip up on a Saturday night after having a great week, I have until Friday morning to self correct. Weird? perhaps, but it works for me.

eissacf25

This just happened to me this weekend, my Monday weigh in was disheartening but today I was back where I should be! I use Happy Scale (app on your phone) as do many on here, it helps even out those fluctuations and gives you a real picture of your weight even if you *think* you gained 2 lbs over the weekend. Just plug it into the app and it'll tell you if you're still trending down and what your real weight most likely is. I find the app super helpful, especially for the weekends!

murp4069

Another vote for lower calories during the week to save for the weekend.
I also tend to eat more on the weekend. It's pretty easy during the week to keep my calories low, but with the weekends it's more difficult. I stay under my calorie goal by 100-300 each day M-F, which gives me a little leeway on the weekend to eat a bit more and to account for inaccuracies in logging when I'm eating out and can't calculate with the kind of accuracy I can at home.
And yes, use the recipe builder for everything you make at home. Once you get used to it, it's pretty easy and doesn't cost much time.

Emily3907

serindipte wrote: »

The best way I've found to determine "however many servings" is to weigh the final product and then put the total grams as how many servings in the recipe builder. That way I can just enter the number of grams I ate as my servings number.

This is genius. I have logged a lot of recipes, but never thought of doing it this way. This seems to be the most accurate way to track recipes. Thanks for the tip!

maybe1pe

you could also look at the MFP weekly calories. I eat under a few days a week so that I can go over on a day and still average the amount of calories I'm aiming for.