Tracked first meal should I do premium

catgirl2289

I'm so excited because I tracked my first meal. I made a smoothie. I was wondering if it is worth it to do premium? I tried to make the smoothie a meal I could save as I put in different fruit but it looks like it wouldn't let me.

Thanks,

Robyn

janejellyroll

Welcome!

In my opinion, you should only get premium if you see specific features on there that will make it easier for you to track. None of the features are personally worth it to me, although I know some other people sometimes find value in them.

The ability to create a meal is a free account feature, you shouldn't need premium to do it. I'm not sure what system you're using (phone app or web) or what you mean by it not "letting" you do it, but I'm able to create a meal both on my Android app and on the web page with my free account.

goal06082021

Hi Robyn,

Can you describe exactly what you were trying to do/how you were trying to do it? Were you logging your smoothie by adding one ingredient at a time directly to your diary, or using the Recipe Builder?

The "Remember meal" or "Save meal" feature in the diary is for when you want to save time logging if you eat the same thing prepared the same way over and over again - if you make the same smoothie the same way every day, for instance, then it makes sense to save the ingredients you logged as a meal, so you can just add them all at once when you go to log your smoothie tomorrow. Or, if you do meal prep, you can log the components of a prepped meal and then save them as a unit, so it's quicker to go in and log your lunch if it's the same thing every day for a week.

If you were using the recipe builder, you need to go through that part of the service to make changes to a saved recipe; you can't do it from the diary. On the desktop site, go to Food > Recipes and then mouse over the recipe you would like to edit; there should be an Edit link that appears in the upper-right corner of the box. You'll be able to adjust serving size, adjust quantities of ingredients, replace them with different entries, or remove them entirely on the next page. On the app, go to Home > Recipes, Meals, & Foods, find the recipe you want to edit, and then tap the snowman menu and select Edit Recipe. Tap on an ingredient to adjust quantity or replace it; tap and hold to select and tap the trash can icon to remove the ingredient. Tap the + in the upper-right to add a new ingredient. Confusingly, the app also has a "Recipes" option in the menu, which is not your recipes but rather recipes from the MFP blog - "Recipes, Meals, & Foods" is the one you want.

Edit to add: I don't think Premium is worth it personally; I'm not aware of any Premium features that make logging or the Recipe Builder any easier. Just tracking macros more precisely and getting diary insights, some of which are available in the free version as well (and which I'm actually not interested in, so I turned it off).

catgirl2289

Thanks for all your help guys. I will try to look at this again later. I thought I was doing it right but was having issues. Ideally I'd like to make the smoothie the same way each day itd be so much easier then adding each ingredient one at a time.

goal06082021

catgirl2289 wrote: »

Thanks for all your help guys. I will try to look at this again later. I thought I was doing it right but was having issues. Ideally I'd like to make the smoothie the same way each day itd be so much easier then adding each ingredient one at a time.

The easiest way to do that will probably be to log the ingredients in your diary one-by-one, then save that entry as a meal. Some tips to optimize your use of MFP:

1. Make sure you're measuring all of your ingredients with a food scale, to make sure your smoothie or whatever food you're preparing is exactly the same every single time. (Protip: 1 oz = 28 g.) If you need to tweak the recipe a bit one day (maybe you're running low on X, or feeling like you want a little more Y today), it is easy to tweak an individual ingredient; click or tap/hold on an entry and then you can adjust the quantity easily.
2. Make sure you're choosing accurate database entries for your ingredients. Most of the database is user-submitted, and has been around for 15 years, so there are some entries that are missing nutrient information, or that are just flat-out wrong. For minimally-processed foods, like whole fruits/vegetables, common cuts of meat, and dairy, there's usually a USDA entry that has calories, macros, and micros, and includes a serving size by mass (ounces or grams). I would trust those more than I would the entries that are more subjective ("Banana - 1 medium" and the like - how big is a "medium" banana?) If you're using a prepared/packaged food, like a protein powder, peanut butter, or similar, double-check every so often to make sure the MFP entry matches the label on the product you bought; food manufacturers sometimes quietly change their recipes in ways that affect the calorie content and nutrient breakdown, but if nobody goes in and updates the MFP database, those changes won't show up here.

callsitlikeiseeit

been around 10 years and there is nothing that premium offers that I need.

Learn how to use the recipe builder and the poster above me gave solid advice as well.

heybales

What's nice with logging as a Meal you can use the next day.

Super easy to add a new item, or change quantity on item there now.
Maybe you want to try 2 bananas, or an apple instead of a banana.
You add the meal as normal - delete the one item you don't need, or change the serving size on the items you need to.

So much easier than a recipe builder when things may change slightly.

And if you have your altered meal and like enough to repeat - you now make that one a meal with different name and it's adjusted items. Your original Meal not changed unless you want to save over it.