Do u find yourself guessing?

snazzyjazzy21

I only guess when I'm eating out. I prepare or help prepare all the meals we eat at home so I can be as accurate as possible when I log.

eatspopcorn

Nope, no can do. I've done that in the past, and it always lead to me stopping completely and regaining.

I log it all on here, and use the recipe builder when I cook. Having said that....I do not stress over having to guess at something I don't know to be 100% accurate. I find the best match to my knowledge and move on. If I eat out at a restaurant, I go by their posted nutrition knowing that they're not going to make my burger by weighing/measuring the ingredients, and they don't weigh my serving of fries, but its better than nothing. When my husband cooks I do the best to enter in approximate amounts of the ingredients he used so I at least have an idea.

Life gets in the way sometimes, so we deal with it the best way we can. But don't start loosening things up so much that eventually you're guessing at everything, and then just logging in your head and end up not logging at all. That's my personal experience :drinker:

cwolfman13

Recipe for disaster?

wouldn't go that far, but calorie counting is largely about being as precise as possible...even then there is inherent error...you're just magnifying that error. chances are it probably won't work all that well for you.

I used the recipe builder as I cook in bulk from scratch most of the time and eat little in the way of packaged foods. When I ate out I did the best I could...but ultimately determined that I had the most success when I pretty much stopped eating out save for 2 or 3 times per month. Also, ultimately my macros and other nutritional information became important for me as I was largely focused on my general health rather than just weight loss.

lemurcat12

I'm not sure I understand "where I actually want servings". When would you not want servings? Servings in the recipe section was a whole other form of hades for me.

Like if you are making meat and simple sides you don't need servings. You just need to know what pieces or portions you will be eating or, if necessary, to weigh when cooked and go with those measures (for example, I like to roast bone-in chicken, so there's no option but to weigh the cooked meat). Servings seem only necessary if you are making a dish with lots of ingredients, and even there if you can divide it up reasonably evenly into 4 parts or some such you probably don't need to mess with creating a recipe, but just take 1/4 of everything (which is how I usually deal when making a pasta sauce or the like, although it's not perfectly precise, of course). But like I said, it could be that I tend to be a pretty simple cook most of the time. Agreed that futzing around with weighing a whole dish is a pain if that's necessary.

Francl27

For me being lazy is when I know I'm going to be over anyway, and I stop weighing packaged foods...

sodakat

And not entering what you eat, but just logging in calories in a general way?

I've realized that there are lots of ways to use MFP to help me lose weight, especially the Reports that can be generated from the "MY HOME" section.

If I were to add most of my calories using the "Quick Add" function instead of logging each food item, I would not be able to look at the last 30 days of my diary and break it down by macro, such as sodium or potassium or protein and match the info with the Weight Loss report.

Because I weigh daily and have started entering every loss, even a partial pound loss, I can see a pattern in how I lose weight. I can then note the date of the days prior to each loss and take a look at my diary components for those days, looking for any obvious patterns.

I know you don't need to track specific foods as long as you are in a deficit, but if you want to learn more about "How" and "When" you are losing, then these reports are very useful -- and without entering foods correctly, the reports are not very worthwhile.

Kathy

lavendy17

The simpler the food, the easier to estimate with decent accuracy.

OOOH great idea!