Extreme noob, trying to make diary/foods/recipes work

n1tp1cky

Friend of mine lost 40lbs with MFP so I thought I would try it. But the tools are so complicated! Every time I think I got something to work, a screen closes on me or stuff gets added to my diary that is not what I was trying to do. Can anyone give me some tips for ...

1. Adapting recipes posted on MFP? For instance, today they posted a tuna, apple &c. dish that serves 2. I'm not a fan of tuna so subbed in chicken. Calls for 8 oz of tuna but my scale says 3/4 cup of chicken only weighs 2 oz; 8 oz would be a TON of chicken and the MFP calculation with my substitute attempts is like half my calorie goal for the day! Calls for sliced almonds but the calorie tally was for ground almonds. Calls for 1 avocado but I had to piece together the good parts of three partially spoiled avocados, but couldn't adapt the recipe to show this in tablespoons or cups. And so forth. It was a real struggle to get the recipe to reflect this, whether in the name or the ingredients or the portions. And it still shows the original items.

2. Including instructions in recipes that you add by hand or from a website? Or is the recipe option just to create a list of ingredients?

3. Seeing the ingredients in a commercial food listed in the DB? I spent way too much time trying to find something (from my work cafeteria) and could only pick some commercial packaged food whose name sounded similar, but I have no real idea if it's close to what I actually ate because I couldn't see the ingredients. Then I created it by manual entry. The site said it had been entered into the DB but I couldn't find it again, no matter how many keywords I tried. I assumed once I created it, it would be added to my food diary or at least available. Arghh! I mostly eat homemade stuff that I improvise on the spot -- do I really have to create a new "recipe" every time?

4. Seeing the ingredients when I find someone's recipe in the database, again going just based on name? Can't tell if it's similar to what I ate if I can't see what's in it.

5. Modifying recipes on the fly when filling out the food diary? If a recipe calls for almonds, and I don't have any, I might sub in pumpkin seeds one day, and sunflower seeds another day. Is there a way to log these temporary modifications when logging meals?

I did look in the FAQs and forums but didn't find any of these answers.
Sorry for the wordiness but I'm just so frustrated. And this is day 2! When the novelty wears off, I doubt I'll have the patience to struggle with this for an hour+ every day just to log stuff.

Thank you, if anyone bothers to respond.

CyberTone

1. Adapting recipes posted on MFP?

Once imported, you can edit the Recipe ingredients...

https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/en/portal/articles/13994-how-do-i-edit-or-delete-a-recipe-

2. Including instructions in recipes that you add by hand or from a website? Or is the recipe option just to create a list of ingredients?

The Recipe feature does not include instructions. It probably never will.

3. Seeing the ingredients in a commercial food listed in the DB?

Not possible. MFP does not provide any data fields for users to enter the ingredients from commercial items.

4. Seeing the ingredients when I find someone's recipe in the database, again going just based on name? Can't tell if it's similar to what I ate if I can't see what's in it.

Not possible. MFP does not let user's share their Recipes; Recipes are private to each user.

5. Modifying recipes on the fly when filling out the food diary?

When you want to modify the quantity of items or substitute items in a meal frequently eaten together, it is better to use the My Meals feature instead of the Recipe feature.

https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2678319-meal-creation-w-photos-faq