How to log home cooked meals?

The_Movie_Chair

Logging home cooked food is so confusing if it's not a piece of meat and some veggies. I bought a digital scale and I measure and weigh my snacks and some food, but how do I measure home cooked sauces, soups, and stews?

I made black bean chili today and protein soup for lunch for the coming week. When I try to find it in the food diary that's when it gets complicated. The numbers in the database are all over the place. It's confusing.

Do I use the one with the highest calories or the lowest or perhaps one in the middle?
The sodium is all over the place as well. (I use low sodium broth or make my own broth without salt).

Should I weigh my soup or measure it with cups and estimate the rest?

What about homemade gravy and sauces?

I understand that I have to log everything faithfully but how?

Am I overthinking it and should just pick a number?

omakase619

Log into a recipe accounting all the ingredients. Then as you eat cut the servings according

cwolfman13

Use the recipe builder

Reaverie

I just calculate each individual item as it gets added. Recipes are pretty straightforward. If you like more of one thing then adjust accordingly. Like on the spaghetti squash recipe I did, I added extra spinach cause YUM. I calculated entire total after that (1236 cal) then divided by 6 servings.. (206). It turned out to be more like 7 but eh.. so I added more calories to what I actually ate. No big deal.

TavistockToad

Recipe builder

Aetheldreda

As others have mentioned, use the recipe builder. I use it for every home cooked meal or sauce/soup and have found it invaluable.

The_Movie_Chair

I didn't know there was a recipe builder. I will search for it. Thank you