Best Way to Log Dinner?

Curleycue0314

So I need tips from everyone on the best way to log dinners! My Husband is a stay at home father and makes all the dinners (almost) during the week as I work about 40 min from our home. I need tips to help me log the calories I eat at dinner because i don't prepare it and Dinner is the hardest meal for me to log because i don't control how, or sometimes what is made... HELP ME PLEASE...this is my biggest hurdle to overcome right now!

silversociety

For most items, I'm sure there is an equivalent in the database so for the most part you should be good. Worst case scenario, you can just ask him for the recipes and enter in the dishes item by item.

hendelk

I usually create my own recipe by entering each individual ingredient and then log the portion of the whole meal that I ate. It is a little time consuming at first, but you can save the recipe so if your hubby makes the same things again it will make logging so much easier.

drefaw

^ What Silver said ^ I have found everything I need in the data base. And added a few of my own too ....

Wol5894

My hubby is stay at home too but I live only 15 minutes cycle ride away from work (we do have a car but are consciously trying to use it less).

Fortunately, Hubby has also been losing weight too and is only too keen to help and support me in my battle with the bulge. Over the last 9 months, we have gone through all sorts of meals that we regularly have and worked out how to make them more calorie conscious, then logged them either as recipes or saved them as meals. This means we now have quite a repertoire of saved meals which we can call on when we can't think what to eat.

Yes, it DOES take time and some determination to build this information up but believe me, it is worth it!

Hubby and I now sit down, usually on a Sunday evening, with a copy of the week's diary in front of us (we use a GMail electronic diary) and we roughly plan out what we are going to eat over the coming week, bearing in mind things that have to be done or places that we are each going. This "plan" is not set in stone and we might swap one night's meal for another but always roughly within a certain calorie limit, so that we have spare to "spend" if we want.

Hubby is in the enviable position of having lost his weight and is now struggling to eat enough to keep his weight UP (lucky man!) but if he wants more to eat, then he does his in the daytime whilst I am out at work, so I don't have to watch him eating things like jam sponge pudding and custard or a bar of chocolate.

Obviously I don't know if your hubby would agree to do any of this but it is worth a try. We have found that if we do this weekly planning, we can hone down our shopping list to those things that we actually need to cook from scratch and we now rarely buy anything processed. Good for the household budget too!

As I said, it takes a bit of determination but it is worth it in the end.

PaytraB

If I make it myself, I add the recipe into "my recipes".
If someone else cooks, I look in the database for an equivalent and, if there's more than one choice, I choose the higher caloried choice to be sure I'm covered.

Curleycue0314

I should also add that Hubby is a VERY Skinny 6'1" Type 1 Diabetic. While he does have to watch his sugar/Carb intake he does not have to watch how much he is eating because...HE needs to gain! The other struggle is to find things that he can eat (or will eat) that aren't horrible for me. I also don't want him to have to make a seperate dinner for me as well! I do like the idea of adding all my recipes to my system as i do meal plan and let him pick which to make. Now to find the time to do this! Thanks so far everyone!

MightyDomo

An option might be to have everything made from a cook book and keep your grocery receipts to know what the exact item is.

I eat from the cafeteria at my office and I take notice of the brands that they use so I can be relatively accurate on what I eat based off of that.

Biitchstix

I live at home and have the same problem sometimes, Although I do make my own meals 90% of the time when I eat what my Mom/Dad's cooked I usually just ask them to write up a little list of all the ingredients and then I go to the 'create a recipe' option on here total everything up and portion it out depending on how much I'm having. I've also put in a few of the things my boyfriend usually makes for me when I'm staying over at his place so I don't have to worry about overloading on junk (lets just say he doesn't share my desire to be healthy lol).

nxd10

My husband does the same thing.

Lots of things are pretty straight forward - beans, meat, etc.

Sometimes he gets quite elaborate (though usually less than a restaurant). However most of the things he adds are negligible calories. Exceptions are oils and sauces (Bam, Sriracha, etc.) I ask him about how much he added and divide it by how much I ate of it. So yesterday he made mango pudding and I ate a third of a mango and 1/3 or 1/4 of a cup of sugar, etc.

I use 'create a recipe' a lot, but mostly just for things I cook. Some of his specialties, though, I do enter.

You get into the swing of it.

BarbieAS

I would just ask him how it's made and what's in it, and log according to how much of the total you ate.

I understand that your husband might not totally be on the train of cooking meals that totally fit a "losing weight" lifestyle, and that you can't ask him to totally change that or become a short order cook. But the very bare minimum of being supportive, in my mind, would be to at least tell you what to log. Even better would be if he'd be willing to meal plan - even the night before, so that you can pre-log dinner and then fit the rest of your day around that to make sure you don't go over if he makes something that's particularly high calorie. And I like the idea of you using the recipe section here to save yourself a bit of time and effort in logging your meals - even if he doesn't use a cookbook or something, if there's certain meals he makes often then at least it's right there for you.

It also might be helpful to have some extra veggies or salad greens on hand to fill out a meal, that's what I do - I do about half of the cooking myself, but neither my husband nor my 2 too-skinny kids need to eat steamed veggies and chicken breasts every night, so if we're having something a little more high calorie as a main course I just take a small portion and then fill up my plate with salad or another veggie in addition to whatever we make, and usually skip the starch side dish (potatoes or whatever) if there is one. For example, tonight we're having sloppy joes, oven fries, and broccoli. I'll skip the bun and just eat a portion of meat with a fork, and instead of oven fries I'll have asparagus in addition to my broccoli. It's super quick to steam veggies in the microwave (aka death box)!

thisismeraw

Would your husband record what he uses and how much he uses? That way you could just plug it into the recipe builder when you get home before you eat dinner. That would be the best way to ensure you get an accurate calorie count should your husband help by recording what he uses and how much.

You could also sit down with him and make a meal plan. Do it weekly with what you will have for dinner each night. Not only will that help with grocery shopping and avoiding wasting food but it will also help you with planning your diary for food at dinner. If you know what will be made, you can better track your day. Have things made by recipe (if he is good at following them) and than you can just plug them into the tracker.

If he makes something higher in calories, have a small portion of it. Work into meals a side dish or two that is steamed veggies or a salad so you can add bulk to your meal without the added calories.

april1445

This is my hard meal too. It sets off my OCD a bit. I try to err on the side of caution; ie. eating too few calories rather than too many, and I usually end up choosing what I think is closest from the database.

Querian

My hubby rarely cooks but when he does he is a reasonably good sport about telling me the ingredients he used so I can log a recipe. I have to ask and he can sometimes be ornery about it but it only takes a minute or two for him to tell me what he put into this dish so please, help me out Hopefully he is supportive of you so is willing to help.

When I cook I often just keep a running list that I jot down notes as I weigh items, maybe he would be willing to do that, too?

KristyTonn

Have him leave any containers out that you could scan the barcode/enter the exact brand if he uses anything packaged?

x3na1401

Just get him to log it for you.

Simples

tatd_820

I usually create my own recipe by entering each individual ingredient and then log the portion of the whole meal that I ate. It is a little time consuming at first, but you can save the recipe so if your hubby makes the same things again it will make logging so much easier.

This is what I do. Easy to do when you are the one cooking. For someone else to cook I would just make a good guess. Maybe ask him to leave out the packaging for you to scan once you get home?

kluvit

I'm in a similar situation as my husband has a flexible schedule and a much shorter commute, so he almost always decides what's for dinner and begins to prepare it. I try to save enough calories in my budget to cover the kinds of things he normally makes and depending on what I know is in the fridge, I'm sometimes able to guess and log in advance. That said, I try to limit my at work meals to ensure I have 700-900 calories available end of day to cover dinner/dessert; then I limit my portions accordingly. I typically use what's in the database and know my husband well enough to know not to pick a "light" version. When debating over two similar items, I choose the higher calorie one and limit my portion.

Also, I try to limit extra calories where possible...my husband adds extra butter to his portion of potatoes, but not mine. I may choose a light salad dressing and skip the walnuts & cheese on my salad. I'll have lots of salad w/ small portion of high cal entree, skip the cheese and go light on the mayo if we have burgers, share the meat off the pizza with the dogs, etc. All of these things have helped me reach and maintain my goals while still eating normally with my husband We eat the same dinner, I just make a few healthy modifications where feasible and make sure I've got enough "in the bank" to cover the rest (early morning workouts are a big help).

Make your best guess and enjoy/appreciate whatever he makes!