Help with My Fitness Pal

Terry_L_Simpson

I can't figure out how to use this site. I want to enter a recipe for spaghetti, but when I try to enter '97% fat free hamburger' I get a response of '97% fat free hamburger w/ taco mix' - and that's the only entry. I don't know how to enter my own data. I don't know how to get the nutritional data for spices such as oregano, garlic powder, bay leaves, or basil. Maybe I'm too old to be 'computer literate' - I'm 71. But I really want to find a way to lose weight, and My Fitness Pal seems to be a good tool - if I can figure out how to use it!

Thanks!

MySlimGoals

I'm a bit of a novice too, but I find trying different ways of entering what I want to enter, and eventually I happen upon something that comes up that looks like what I'm having. Do you know what brand of bread your hamburger is? That would be a good starting point to enter in and see if it comes up with the right brand and select it, and then you input the quanity. Then add in the ingredients separately for whatever you have in it. Then if you type in say ''Lettuce" it's going to come up with about 40 different types of lettuce. If I don't know what variety it is I select ''generic lettuce'" (for example) because that is my best guess and then select the number of leaves or weight on the form you fill out.

apittmanrn

Search ground beef. Should bring up a 93/7. That's what you're looking for...

Terry_L_Simpson

Hm. I want to enter hamburger meat, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chopped onions, chopped mushrooms, chopped celery, chopped bell pepper, sliced olives, garlic salt, celery salt, onion salt, bay leaf, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, and black pepper. All this stuff mixed together makes about two quarts of spaghetti sauce. I add it to a pound of spaghetti noodles, and the pot of spaghetti feeds my husband and I for three separate meals. But I don't know how to enter the data and I don't know how to count the calories, since I don't measure each ingredient. I guess I'll just have to use the numbers for restaurant spaghetti, although their sauce never contains all the vegetables mine does. Thanks anyway!

jigsaw_me

Hm. I want to enter hamburger meat, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chopped onions, chopped mushrooms, chopped celery, chopped bell pepper, sliced olives, garlic salt, celery salt, onion salt, bay leaf, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, and black pepper. All this stuff mixed together makes about two quarts of spaghetti sauce. I add it to a pound of spaghetti noodles, and the pot of spaghetti feeds my husband and I for three separate meals. But I don't know how to enter the data and I don't know how to count the calories, since I don't measure each ingredient. I guess I'll just have to use the numbers for restaurant spaghetti, although their sauce never contains all the vegetables mine does. Thanks anyway!

If you choose ADD FOOD, you'll see "Recipes" in the dark blue section at the top (I'm assuming you're using webpage not phone app).

Click on Recipes and you will see "Your Recipe Box", to the right is a button called Enter New Recipe

Give it a name, enter all ingredients - it only takes a minute or two to weigh/measure them, say it's 6 serves.

Once it's in there you can enter it to any day, just by using the recipe tab when you enter food and say how many servings you had.

Hope that helps.

gregpack

If you build your own recipe Don't bother entering herbs or spice. Unless they contain sugar there'e virtually no calories.

Keep your searches as generic as possible. example- search "beef 97"