Struggling to preciscely track calories

patrickrea2002

Hi everyone I’m trying to bulk up and know how many calories I need but I’m struggling to work out exactly how many calories I’m eating
I don’t cook for myself and I know that better results come when you calculate calories

gallicinvasion

The two most important parts of accurate calorie counting are:

1. Weighing all foods with a digital scale (and measure all liquids)
2. Choosing accurate food entries in the MFP food database when you log.

Have you tried looking at the Getting Started section of the forums? There are some amazing step-by-strep instructions on how to weigh and log your food accurately.

gallicinvasion

If you don’t cook for yourself, I recommend helping in the kitchen when the food is being made. You can use the MFP recipe builder to record what ingredients are going into the dish, recording how many servings the dish will be divided into, and then estimate how many servings you eat. I do this when I eat one of my boyfriend’s prepped lunches. I help him in the kitchen, record all the ingredients, help him divide the meal into portions, and then create the recipe in MFP for logging servings of it later.

tinkerbellang83

Using a trendweight app like Libra can help determine what your actual calorie intake is based on your weight.

sijomial

You don't need to be precise. Reasonable estimates are good enough for your needs.
Consistency and adjusting your goal based on results over time works.

yetdarkercloud

I agree you can calculate calories, but to be honest if you will eat just enough for yourself, it will be enough

Maxxitt

The key really is being consistent with the calorie values you assign the foods you eat (and being a creature of habit helps with this, a lot). Then, if your scale weight over a month makes sense given your estimated calorie intake, all is good. If you find you are losing way faster or way slower than you expected given intake, then make adjustments. At the end of the day, it's all estimate. Your own actual data is the most important.

patrickrea2002

Ok thanks everyone I can’t find the app to do the rough calorie calculations

AnnPT77

patrickrea2002 wrote: »

Ok thanks everyone I can’t find the app to do the rough calorie calculations

It would help to know more about your circumstances: Living at home with another family member doing the cooking? Living in a university where the food is served in a dining hall?

Generally, if you have simple foods, you pick the USDA (or equally sound) entries from the MFP database (like "broccoli, cooked"). If you can weigh the food, great; if not, make your best guess at quantity, trying to be accurate but not low (say, 1.5 cups).

If you're eating some kind of multi-ingredient dish (like lasagna, say) you have your choice of guessing at the components (lasagna noodles, tomato sauce, etc.) and using database entries for the simple food components; or you can look up "lasagna" and pick what looks like the closest thing. If there are lots of potential entries you coudl pick from, try to pick one from a known source that matches their database (like Olive Garden lasagna), or one in the middling-to-high end of the calorie range per serving, and one that quantifies the serving in a way you can relate to (in the case of lasagna, probably cups, or AxBxC inch piece).

If you're eating at home and can politely ask questions about ingredients, you can probably guess better (like, did the cook add a lot of cheese or oil or other high-calorie things, or only a little, if you can't tell by looking. But don't pester the cook with questions. That idea about helping cook, if at home, is better.

jennifer_417

yetdarkercloud wrote: »

I agree you can calculate calories, but to be honest if you will eat just enough for yourself, it will be enough

This makes zero sense?