Homemade meals - How do you know the calories?

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cfarrugia90
cfarrugia90 Posts: 15 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am new to MFP (joined yesterday) and I was just wondering if anyone could help me with a few things. Firstly, on my diary yesterday my net calories were 1361 (my goal is 1300) but the remaining box had a minus (-)61 in red. What does this mean? Is it basically because I ate 61 cals over? I burnt 156 in exercise in case that info helps? Also, things like homemade dinners I am a little confused. Me and my sister are also on Weight Watchers so when I am at home we work out the Pro Points for the entire meal and 1PP works out to be around 44 calories so I multiply the entire amount of the PP by 44 to work out my calories for my meal. I think this is ok or does anyone know a better way to work out the calories in home cooked food? Lastly, tonight I am going out for a meal with my boyfriend's family, his mum is cooking lamb shanks, potatoes and a salad. How am I meant to count the calories in this? I really need some help because I probably won't be able to find out what supermarket the lamb has come from etc or even the weight of the meat so what should I do? Any advice for a newbie?

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  • kristenlees122
    kristenlees122 Posts: 242
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    hello,

    yes, if you goal was 1300 and you ate 1361, you were 61 over. if you burnt 156 in exercise, did you actually eat 1517? that would explain the net of 1361.

    for homemade dinners, you can enter the recipes and tell it how many servings, and it will determine the calories :) if you arent the one cooking, just try and find the closest thing in the database.. ask the cook questions - did you use butter, oil etc? to make sure you arent missing any hidden calories :)

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