Need help tracking calories

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Ryan_Kochan
Ryan_Kochan Posts: 1
in Getting Started
So I am new to this and really seem to be having trouble tracking my calories. The other day my mom made spaggetti, so do I have to measure out the noodles, sauce, and meat all separately? I know there is a place to make recipes, but it asks for number of servings and I have NO Idea how many servings it makes!

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  • srobertking
    srobertking Posts: 74 Member
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    Unless you are using a recipes that has the calories counted out for you already it is best to just measure out each one. It can be tricky when mom is the one cooking though! I'm home for the holidays so I feel your pain!
  • kathleennf
    kathleennf Posts: 606 Member
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    Hi! I am old at this and have the following suggestions:
    1> If you hardy ever eat at your mom's, just use something like "homemade spaghetti" that someone else has entered and estimate how much you ate.
    2> If you eat at your mom's a lot and you want this to work, you have to do it the hard way. Either get the recipe she uses or watch her make it, and enter it in MFP recipe thing and keep track of about how many servings your mom gets out of it in the end.
    Neither way is exact, but they will help. The only way to do it more exactly is cook and measure everything yourself.
  • Autumngolds
    Autumngolds Posts: 30 Member
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    If you search for spaghetti you'll quickly find a meat version on the database, and people often include the major ingredients in the name, so you can find something similar and log that. :) It does come in really useful to have a set of measuring cups, because a lot of the meals in the database are measured using cups. Even just having them there to look at can help you estimate the amount more accurately.
  • conniemaxwell5
    conniemaxwell5 Posts: 943 Member
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    To be the most accurate with home cooked food, you do have to be aware of number of servings a recipe makes and create a recipe with all of the ingredients. However when you don't know, you just have to come as close as you can. For example, measure the amount of noodles and sauce you are going to eat, say 1 cup of noodles and 1/2 cup of meat sauce. Then search the database for 1 cup of spaghetti noodles and search for 1/2 cup of meat sauce. If you're usually pretty accurate with your logging and this is just a special occasion, it will be close enough. If you're usually unaware, then you should get more involved in the preparation of your food so you do become aware.

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