I dont know how many calories to put?!

mgreen10

Ugh looking up calories can be so confusing sometimes. Different websites will have about 300-400 difference in calories for the same food/meal!!! I don't know which one to believe. Even MFP has a lot of variations with different calorie counts. What to do?

CassieLEO

I stick with MFP's readings for calories. Then if theres a discrepency in a calorie count in a food I research it more...

nomoremuffintop42

I always go with the high calories just to be safe....good luck!

mangorabbit

Whenever possible, use what is on the packaging - it can be a pain, but if you have the app on your phone, the bar-code scanner makes it MUCH faster. ^_^

Other things - restaurant food, homemade stuff - can be tough - I tend to stick with MFP's cals, though there are occasionally discrepancies even there. Do some research when you have some time and the inclination, it will help you get an idea for when the numbers showing up are really off base.

Good luck!

Suzeesmu

I use restaurant nutritional info from their websites, input the info on food packaging (or use the barcode scanner app on my phone), and enter my recipes into MFP to get correct calorie counts. When I can't do any of the previously mentioned, I try to find something in the data base that seems fairly close to what I'm looking for (but be sure to check the nutritional info because some items don't have sodium, carbs, other stuff listed - just calories).