How many meals per week....

wewon

During the course of a normal week (Sunday - Saturday) how many meals do you prepare for yourself versus eating in a restaurant or otherwise have prepared for you (eat at mom's or family)?

Edit to add

How difficult is it to track calories when you don't prepare the meal?

jnchorn

HI there. I cook for my family 5-6 nights a week. I dont really cook many meals for breakfast or lunch. I will make the occasional batch of swedish pancakes on Saturday morning. It is hard to track when other cook. You can always try to figure it out or ask for the recipe.

agataarchangel

I like to prepare my own meals strictly due to the money factor- and I dislike processed stuff. I'd say I eat out maybe once per week, maybe 2 if life gets really busy.

Generally when eating out I go for something "healthy" like Subway, or a McDonald's chicken salad- tracking those calories is easy because the restaurants post their nutritional information online.

It gets a little tougher when I purchase sushi or freshly prepared foods at grocery stores- in cases like that I either look up something similar, and then use average amounts of similar meals to track the number of calories in the one I'm having. OR, you can try breaking down your meal into its different components- although this is a little more time-consuming, and your food diary ends up being pretty long some days... like mine :-).

There's always room for error though because you never know how much oil and stuff is used in prepped foods- just take a good guess at it :-)

Christie422

I cook everything I eat. I really HATE to cook so I normally pick a day or two a week and make large quantities of healthy meals to portion out and freeze for later. Then I always have something handy when I get hungry.

jennmoore3

I try to eat at home most days. It is just too hard for me to keep track of calories. Even if it is a frozen meal at home. I am not good enough to track calories from a real restaurant. now if it is Arby's, they have some fast food places logged on here.

BTW, I went to purdue for a while as well! I'm located in N.W. Indiana. where are you?

Jenn

Last_15

I cook all of our meals, everyday, all week.

ZebraHead

At home (most of the time):

All breakfasts
All Lunches
4 dinners

out:
~3 dinners a week

I don't find it hard to track my 'out' meals because I know ahead of time almost always where I'm going and what choices I will be making. (Is that boring?)

theresabell67

Since my husband is not working right now, we have been preparing our meals at home on an average of 5 - 6 days a week, which to be totally honest here is more than we have done in prolly over 5 years which is really sad when you think about it. When eating out I try to break down the meal as close as possible and will add some of the "quick caloires" if needed, or i will look up their menu on line before going out. This also allows me to plan ahead what i will order. As for eating at my parents house, I have always been lucky with that because my mother is diabetic and can tell me exactly what is in the meal. Hope this helps

CARNAT22

I prepare dinner from scratch most evenings (6/7 times per week)

Breakfast is usually toast / fruit / youghurt so not much preparation but I do that every day (7 times per week)

Lunch is something like chicken salad / soup & wholemeal roll / beans on toast. Occasionally i will have a shop bought pasta salad but I'd say 5 times a week I prepare something myself .

So that's 18 out of 21 meals I have at least a hand in preparing.

fteale

I make all but one or two meals a week myself, so it is pretty easy to track what I am eating.

Katbaran

I cook lunch (our main meal of the day) for both hubby and me and then, a small lunch-type meal later for myself while he is at work. We only order in or go out to eat once or twice a month. I cook 95% of the time from fresh or fresh-frozen ingredients. We don't eat much processed food. A little dried pasta and the occasional jarred pasta sauce. It gets really old cooking all the time sometimes, but its so much better for us that I really don't mind.

morganadk2_deleted

I cook all of our meals, everyday, all week.

Me too..

scarletleavy

I try to cook 100% of my meals at home. In general I never eat out and occasionally I don't cook a full breakfast or lunch, but I do prepare all of my meals at home. I cook dinner every night. I love to cook, it's really a hobby and a relaxation tool for me, so I enjoy it.

talysshade

I Cook at least 4 days à week at my own place or at my parents'. even when im at my parents and my mum Cooks i make sure i know exactly which ingredients she used so i can make a good estimate of calories.

I do eat a freshly home cookked meal every day, i never make instant meals at all.

I go out for dinner occasionally, but only for dates like once a month at most.

shadow3829

I do better tracking when I eat from home. Eating out kills me. I try not to eat out more than 2 evening a week. Basically it ends up with me eating to maintain the weekends....If that makes sense. If it wasn't for the BF I would eat from home 100% of the time.

agibsonky

We eat out Monday evenings and eat at my in-laws on Sunday evenings - other than that, all meals at home. Tracking the restaurant food is not bad b/c we choose restaurants that post nutrition info (Applebees - yay!), but I always just guess at my MIL's meal.

elephantmeg

out of 21 meals (plus 3 night shift meals so 24 really) I make/prepare all but 2 or 3. We generally eat at DH's grandma's one night, out once or twice over the weekend. Once is generally fast food so that's all in the database. The ones I have a hard time with are buffets or family style restaurants.

eates

Generally we eat out once a week. Before we go out I check the menu online (if it's available) and the nutrition info & figure out what I'm going to eat. Other than that I cook/fix what we're gong to eat.

wewon

BTW, I went to purdue for a while as well! I'm located in N.W. Indiana. where are you?

Jenn

Now I live in Cincinnati. I was at Purdue from 88-92 for my BS and 2008-2010 for my MS.

When were you there?

tryinghard2012

I prepare every meal with a rare exception I may have a lunch meeting and grab a salad. 9 times out of 10 I cook every meal (no frozen prepackaged meals).

This also helps me manage my time more efficiently.