Please help! New and overwhelmed

I am going to start making the transition to eating healthier and using MFP regularly tomorrow morning. Another question on logging food. How are you supposed to log a dinner that you ate at someones house accurately? (ie; Homemade chicken parm or sausage and peppers?)
What about if your cooking with say 2TBS of oil to saute spinach with garlic and oil? How are you supposed to calculate this because you aren't going to be consuming all that oil, it will be all mixed in?

The answer to your first question is "with great difficulty and large error." Just do the best you can by finding pieces and ingredients that seem about right.

As for the second: add the spinach as raw, then add the oil. Measure the oil you put in the pan then estimate how much made it into the spinach. This will probably be like 1.5 tbsp.

So this is pretty much a guess. WHat about the food YOU cook yourself? You add each ingredient you put in?

Every ingredient with calories. I don't add spices, celery, that kind of thing.

Eating Clean is important to lose weight. You have to think of it as your body needs fuel to work, food is that fuel you don't want cheap fast food going in. You can eat what you want, but as you lose weight you will see a 200 calorie donut isn't as filling as a heatlhy choice dinner that is 250 calories that fills you up. It's a journey and if you want a good one, you will start to make the right choices. I am just now starting mine, I have lost 15 pounds so far and I am earing clean and I've been working out. It is a life change not diet change.

People say this all the time, but it's complete nonsense. Your body has no idea if a burger or chicken sandwich or taco is "clean" or "unclean" or whatever.

Based on this logic, Type II diabetes would not exist and nor would many, many other illnesses that are a result of poor diet (including obesity). It is my experience (which is by no means, unique) that a diet based, for the most part, on healthy, natural foods has caused my body and brain to also become healthy. Yes the body does react differently to different foods; it's quite ridiculous to say that it doesn't imo.

Eating Clean is important to lose weight. You have to think of it as your body needs fuel to work, food is that fuel you don't want cheap fast food going in. You can eat what you want, but as you lose weight you will see a 200 calorie donut isn't as filling as a heatlhy choice dinner that is 250 calories that fills you up. It's a journey and if you want a good one, you will start to make the right choices. I am just now starting mine, I have lost 15 pounds so far and I am earing clean and I've been working out. It is a life change not diet change.

People say this all the time, but it's complete nonsense. Your body has no idea if a burger or chicken sandwich or taco is "clean" or "unclean" or whatever.

Based on this logic, Type II diabetes would not exist and nor would many, many other illnesses that are a result of poor diet (including obesity). It is my experience (which is by no means, unique) that a diet based, for the most part, on healthy, natural foods has caused my body and brain to also become healthy. Yes the body does react differently to different foods; it's quite ridiculous to say that it doesn't imo.

I want to expand on my previous answer a bit. As I said, adult onset diabetes is rare among people who exercise regularly and have a healthy BMI:



Now, that said, I'm sure you could establish a correlation between "healthy foods" and diabetes risk. This would be misleading, though, because most people who exercise and actively maintain a healthy weight also eat "healthy foods," whatever that actually means.

However, I find it unlikely you'd find any significant difference in diabetes risk between people who eat "health food" and "junk food" of equal macronutrient content among who exercise regularly and actively maintain a healthy BMI.

Yes, that is a highly specific correlation you'd have to find, but it's the claim you're making. You're literally saying that your diabetes risk would be lower with a "healthy" diet of equal macronutrient content. I think that's untrue and have yet to see any evidence whatsoever of that.

In fact, I've seen nothing but evidence that points the opposite way. Overweight people who begin exercising and lose weight generally show similar health marker trends when they lose weight. Look at the Twinkie Diet guy for instance. I'm over 50 pounds lighter than I was at my maximum size, and I did it by eating tons of fast food and frozen food, but paying super careful attention to my macronutrient and calorie intake. During that time, my LDL and triglyceride levels went down and my HDL went up and have stayed there.

I think the "healthy food" versus "fast food" thing is extremely overrated, especially when you consider the fact that fast food has similar or identical nutrient content compared to similar items made at home (sandwiches with veggies, grilled chicken, etc).

The absolute most important things are calorie control, macronutrient control, and - above all else - sustainability. People who got fat eating a lot of fast food or frozen pizzas or whatever did so because they love those foods. I sure do. Why deny them when I can enjoy them and still hit my calorie, macronutrient, and micronutrient goals every single day? There's no reason in the world to.

Look at how many people try to lose weight and ultimately fail because they go back to their former ways. It's unbelievable. If we can start to accept the idea that they can continue to enjoy the things they've always enjoyed, but to do so in healthier ways by fitting those foods into a calorie/macro matrix, and also teach them to mix in more nutritious foods, then I believe that's what we should do.

Those who, for whatever reason, want to continue in the "healthy" vein and eat more natural and whole foods or whatever absolutely can and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But, in my opinion, we have to stop perpetuating this stuff that cutting out "fast" and "processed" food is automatically better for your health.

You can find the recipe maker under the food tab. I use it often since I enjoy cooking from scratch and would have no idea of how to estimate calories on some things my family enjoys. And I weight/measure everything. You can get a good digital scale pretty cheap and it is worth the money.

Ok so today I started using MFP and ran into some trouble starting with breakfast LOL. I had:
-2 egg veggie omelet (peas, green beans, peppers, and onions) NO CHEESE on whole wheat toast fresh from bakery
-Small oatmeal (rolled oats) with milk and sugar
-20oz coffee with half and half no sugar

I had a hard time trying to figure out and find which entries to use because where are so many that come up. Any advise on this?
Should I be paying attention to the macro's or just focus on the total calories for the day for now?

Use the info on the package. If there is no package, use the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/