Hi I'm new! Having trouble counting calories

frumassage

I'm new to counting and I'm having trouble knowing if I'm putting in too much or too little.

johannamstanley

Like your total calories or inputting for each meal?

divaphillips

Are you logging in MFP? That has been a tremendous help with keeping track of the calories I should be eating and determining the nutrients in a food before I eat it.

JacquiH73

I use a gram scale and weigh my portions. I read my labels and make sure that MFPs calorie counts is the same as the what's on the label. I utilize the barcode scanner on my phone app as much as possible. Sometimes I double check calories on fruits and vegetables. I don't always trust what's listed in the MFP food database.

Eating out I have to guestimate, that's probably the least accurate of my calorie counts. If you eat at chain restaurants you can usually pull up the nutritional information from their menus on their websites. I don't eat at chain restaurants, I prefer to support local small business, so I just go in the food database and pull what most closely resembles my restaurant meal. It's not perfect but it keeps me accountable.

The most accurate way to stay on top of your calorie consumption is to prepare at home and weigh portions. The recipe importer is a great tool. Just be sure to go over each ingredient to make sure MFP has pulled the right ingredients and nutritional information and measurement. With some tweaks you can usually get pretty accurate results. Helps with also portioning out for freezing for later meals.

If you don't have a digital kitchen scale with a tare function - buy one. They range between $15-30 online.

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