I'm having a hard time cooking at home...

rannawelch

I find it so much easier to eat out or to buy a prepackaged meal because I struggle with cooking and keeping track of everything I put into a meal.. how do I know exactly what the nutritional facts of my recipe are? I don't have time to scan every single thing that goes into some meals.. help!!!

MissMaryMac33

It's really not too hard to make a recipe here .. especially if its something you use often.
You can also enter all the items into your diary and then create a meal from it -- that will save for next time too.

I tend to cook a lot of bascially similar things over and over so most of my diary is full of recipes.

hazelnut861

There's a recipe thing in tools that could help. You put in the stuff in the recipe and it gives you a nutrition label.

MB_Positif

There's a recipe calculator on here, you can enter all of your ingredients once and save the recipe. Then you'll have it there for each time you make the same thing!

KA29

hungrygirl.com has TONS of recipes that are healthy and easy to make. Each recipe has the full nutritional breakdown, so you know what you are taking in. As long as you stick to the ingredients called out.

sryan8408

Prepackaged foods are going to give you a lot of sodium. Sodium = water weight. Weight weight = bloat. Try something simple. You know in your head what's good for you and what isn't. Load a bunch of veggies in your meal, nix the sauces, use lighter versions, and you should totally be able to fit what you want into your diet.

MissMaryMac33

Many of the recipes from SkinnyTaste.com are already in the database here too if you ever make those.

kiesh82

If it's important to you, make time. It doesn't take that long! MFP's calorie app has a recipe builder where you just plug everything in and how many ppl it serves and it spits the caloric value out for you. It's much cheaper and healthier to cook your own meals, plus you can have more variety. Maybe you can start off cooking simple stuff at first...chicken or fish, rice & veggies til you get the hang of calorie counting and go from there.

tomomatic

I tend to look for equivalent items at Restaurants.... or the generic equivalent.

Ex: My Lasagna is probably pretty similar to Bucca's lasagna... nutritionally speaking.
Ex: My Homemade Oatmeal with trail mix is probably similar to what Corner Bakery puts in their Oatmeal. (except, I use 2% milk and I think they use whole or cream).

It's not exact but it's a good enough approximation for tracking calories. Although, I've been really wrong on some things:

Ex: My Turkey burger at home is much different than turkey burger at Ruby Tuesdays.

wicdwoman2003

what I did at first is just figured out like 3 brakfast ideas (omlet, oatmeal, cereal with fruit) and then about 6 lunch/dinner meals, and just picked from them for a week or two..as you get a few min here and there, add another 2 meals, put on index cards so when you pick a meal to make, you have it all there and dont have to refigure..that was the hardest part for me as well!

lauraashley614

I used to think the same way, but it's really not that hard to start cooking with simple low ingredient count meals. That way you just have to add 3 or 4 items. Also, since I'm still learning how to cook, many of my recipes come from an app called Healthy Recipes from Spark Recipes and most of those are already in the MFP database, so you can add the whole meal that way.

melsinct

Eatingwell.com has nutritional info for every recipe, and their recipes are very good. I'd be leery about using Hungry Girl recipes as suggested above. With all of the fat free/fake processed sodium laden crap used in those recipes, it would be easier to just buy a Lean Cuisine and call it a day.