3 questions: Logging, diary history, etc

joowelz

Hi MFP Community,

Thanks for all of your replies recently to my string. Theyre really helpful.

I am wondering a few things:

1. When you enter a food to log it, how do you know which option is calorically correct? For instance, lentil soup has dozens of entries and the calories range significantly. This is a homemade recipe so there’s no nutrition label available. I have just been guesstimating.

2. We are able to see our progress history in the app. Mine goes back to March 2013. Where can i see my diary history from that year (when i was at my thinnest)?

3. Has anyone tried Richard Simmons’ Deal a Meal program? And if so, did it work for you?

Lietchi

For the first question: simply don't use generic entries like 'lentil soup'.
Make your own recipe by adding the individual ingredients. For the individual ingredients: use the nutrition labels on the package or look up the data on the USDA website to choose the appropriate entry in the MFP database.

Deviette

Only one I've really got an answer for is number one:

The only way to know how many calories that soup has is to actually log the recipe that you've used. You have no idea what recipes anyone else has used! Best way to do this is to log each of the ingredients separately using the recipe creator so then you know exactly how many calories it is. I very rarely use the generic entries or the entries that other people create for things that I've made myself.

Duck_Puddle

For number 2, the free version of mfp only holds diary entries for 2 years now. Premium holds them all. Big price to pay for old diary entries.

I don’t know if starting premium today would retroactively restore your entries from 2013 though.

nanastaci2020

1. Create your own recipe in MFP. I do this often. I enter all the ingredients (By weight) and then set the # of servings = to the # of grams in the final dish. Then when I log my portion, I log the # of servings based on how many g I put on my plate. Example is last night I made baked pasta with penne, jars of sauce, low fat ricotta, turkey sausage crumbled & browned, mozzarella, a few eggs and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top. The entire final/cooked food weighed 3305 grams. I set the recipe to 3305 servings, and put 324g on my plate so logged 324g for me.

Otherwise, using an entry for 'lentil soup' in the database is a guess and can't possibly be accurate since you don't know how it compares to what you made.

2. I don't believe the diary goes back that far. I imagine there would be a storage issue.

3. I have not heard of it, but I'm not one to follow a 'meal plan'. I just make my own food. I do go looking for recipes online from time to time for inspiration.

NovusDies

I remember Deal-A-Meal. It was kind of popular back when RS was sweating to the oldies more. It was meant to be a less involved system than Weight Watchers.

As I recall the premise is when you eat serving from a food group you pull that card from your pouch and were only able to eat from your remaining cards but you were meant to eat from all of them.

I believe the upside of it was that it encouraged balanced nutrition. I do not remember how the system told you what a serving size was or how it scaled itself for stats and activity.

If it creates a calorie deficit it should work for weight loss. Whether or not it is the easiest way for you to lose weight with decent adherence is another question. I am assuming that there is either an app version of it now or you have come across the system at a garage sale.



ETA: I never tried it. I saw it on TV many times though.

janejellyroll

I would never use generic entries created by someone else (like "lentil soup") unless I had no better option. You simply have no idea what that person had in mind when they created the entry. If I was eating lentil soup that someone else prepared for me, I'd still probably find it more accurate to estimate how much of each ingredient I could identify that I was eating and log it that way.

domeofstars

With a homemade recipe like lentil soup, I check the calories for every ingredient- I go by the package and weight. If it isn't packaged I use another site (calorie king) to double check calorie values. Then I add the total calories together for every ingredient, and divide by the number of serves.