Meal Prepping ? Calorie counting? HELP

Wendycorral

I want to meal prep...but i also want to count my calories ...
Iam lost I need help...would seasoning count has a calorie?

leooftheyear

Use the recipe creator, add the ingredients or import the recipe from the site and set the number of servings and save it. And log it as your meal for that day.

toxikon

It's easy! Here's what I do.

As I prep my ingredients, I weigh everything on my digital scale and write down the number (in grams) on a notepad. For liquids I usually just stick to measuring cups. I don't usually weigh my herbs/salt/seasonings as they're pretty negligible.

After the food is complete and cooled down a bit, I divide it into my containers. I bought 150 reusable plastic tupperware from Amazon (for super cheap) that I use for meal prep. I make sure the servings are in equal portions as best I can.

I go on MFP and manually add my recipe - using all the gram values that I collected from my ingredients. Then set the serving size to however many containers I used.

Easy peasy!

fitzmonkey13

@toxikon has the right idea! I do the same thing. Make notes as I go, put it all in the recipe builder and then save it. You can also import recipes from a website if you are trying something new rather than using a personal or family recipe.

I do most of my meal prep on the weekends for the whole week, and I put in all my recipes for things I plan to make later in the week, or think I might make. That way they are already in and I can just edit them if I make a substitution or want to change the portion sizes. And I pretty much always make double batches of things to have stuff in the freezer. At this stage, if I got sick or went away for a weekend, I have about a week's worth of meal prep in my freezer and would just need to prep any fresh veggies for salads or whatever.

It feels like SO MUCH WORK in the beginning, but once you get started you get faster at it. Also, once you have all the stuff you usually make in there, you'll only need to add new recipes. It's definitely work the start up effort.

Wendycorral

Thank you Guys ))) I will give it a try and hopefully get it right )))

fitzmonkey13

@Wendycorral You'll probably make a few mistakes along the way. I know I did. But that's okay. If you are doing this to improve your life, a few hiccups don't make much of an impact. The trick to figure out what the mistake was and try to fix it for next time. I have a really bad habit of hitting the back button instead of the save button after entering a long recipe. Multiple times. That's why I started writing it down and entering it after, or entering it before I cook it and editing later. That take the pressure off and I generally manage to press the right buttons. Mostly.

Lizzy622

The Eating Well website has some free meal plans at various calorie levels to give you some ideas of where to start.

brb_2013

Start simple. Yes technically spices have calories but for the sake of learning don't worry about the nitty gritty right now. I focus on weighing all the "heavy" calorie items: protein, carbs, and things like cheese/yogurt because they add up fast. Just start by weighing and logging what you usually eat. Maybe do this for two weeks, and analyze your patterns. Learn from yourself because there is no one size fits all plan.

Take what your calorie average is, and set your calorie goal to something below that. If you feel like this is a big challenge for you then just cut out 100 calories at first. I have really grown to enjoy my meal plan and prepping for it. To keep it easy on myself I eat all the same foods on weekdays. Just finally picked a "master plan" this week really, it's not always easy to spend an hour or two meal prepping but it's a skill you can build on for sure. I get better at it every week.

The key to lasting change is to only compare you to you, see where you could make a change (do you pile cheese on tacos? Try just one serving, weighed out, could save 150+ calories easily). See what changes feel the easiest to make and make them slowly, once mastered you move on to a new challenge. My first step was to reduce processed carbs at dinner, I used to eat half a box of pasta, half an entire package of pork sausage and pesto. It was a 1500 calorie meal I never eat anymore because I've made slow changes. First it was the same but we added bell pepper and zucchini. Then we just had ONE serving of pasta each... Now it's all veggies no pasta and simple protein like chicken. Slow change is key, I couldn't have gone from all that pasta to just veggies overnight. Add me and message me if you have questions, helping others in turn always helps me learn more as well

Wendycorral

This are great tips thanks guys .....:)