Calculating Recipes

Lyadeia

I encourage everyone on this website to manually enter in your recipes, even if your recipes have a cute little chart telling you how many calories and ratios of macronutrients are in each serving.

I get most of my recipes from the recipe books that come with the Beachbody programs, Max Muscle, and the New Dieter's Cookbook from Better Homes and Gardens. But, after entering just 5 recipes manually using the exact amounts of the brands that I normally purchase, I found HUGE discrepancies from what I am really eating to what is listed in the book.

For example, one of my favorite recipes using shrimp is the ChaLEAN Extreme recipe Shrimp Fra Diavolo over Linguine. According to the book, it is only 443 calories per serving. After putting in all the ingredients manually into the recipe function on MFP, I discovered that one serving was actually 550 calories!!! So before, I was eating an extra 100 calories somewhere else that I really didn't need. No wonder my weight loss hasn't been as swift as I prefer!!!

Another example...I love the P90X recipe for Shrimp Pasta Pomodoro, only I actually substitute with boneless, skinless chicken breast instead of shrimp. I previously used a calorie counter to make a clean and easy swap so the calories would have been the same between the amount of shrimp and the amount of chicken. Ha! I entered that one in using the brands I typically buy, and I discovered that while the book states that it is 531 calories, it is really only 440 calories. So I was cutting myself short by 100 calories on that one. Hmph!

And for some reason, I have discovered that EVERY recipe that I have that includes TORTILLAS vastly UNDERESTIMATES the amount of calories in them. This seems to be true no matter where the recipe comes from. Unless they are using 2" tortillas (which I don't think exist)...

So even if the nutrition facts are listed on a recipe you love, I would strongly encourage you to use the recipe function and manually add your brands of foods to see what it really comes out to be. I haven't found any recipes that I will stop using, but it really does affect what you eat for your other meals and snacks so you don't go too far over or under your calorie limit!!!

Raina0512

I'm addicted to entering my recipes into MFP! It's soooo helpful and what you think is a healthy dinner, a lot of times (for me) is a not so healthy dinner! :noway:

chocolateandvodka

On the tortilla conundrum, check the packages at the supermarket - the actual sizes and brands have a wide range of calorie and fat content. I've also noticed that many of the amounts on here are completely different from what the actual package says. I try to catch and correct them when I can, but I only use one or two types.