Comprehension in serving size
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ajama69
Posts: 3
Hi there,
I want to track my daily food with MyFitnessPal app, but actually I do not really understand the intention of entering nutrition data on the basis of a portion size and why I should enter number of servings per container.
Typically nutrition information is given per 100 g in Germany, so I would like to enter it this way. But if I choose serving size 100g I obviously can't enter additional information for a standard serving size like 50 g cereals, 1 EL (Esslöffel = engl. tablespoon = 10 g), 1 Glas (200 ml), 1 Stück (5,5 g) or something like that. How can I do this?
What is the intention or philosophy for entering food in the myfitnesspal database? Can anyone tell me it?
Alex
I want to track my daily food with MyFitnessPal app, but actually I do not really understand the intention of entering nutrition data on the basis of a portion size and why I should enter number of servings per container.
Typically nutrition information is given per 100 g in Germany, so I would like to enter it this way. But if I choose serving size 100g I obviously can't enter additional information for a standard serving size like 50 g cereals, 1 EL (Esslöffel = engl. tablespoon = 10 g), 1 Glas (200 ml), 1 Stück (5,5 g) or something like that. How can I do this?
What is the intention or philosophy for entering food in the myfitnesspal database? Can anyone tell me it?
Alex
0
Replies
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Not sure I understNd the question, but the serving size is just a standard of measure. i.e. if something is measured as 100g being one serving and you have 50g, then you would log 1/2 serving. Simple math. I must be missing something,0
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It has to do with tracking your daily caloric intake.0
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Enter how many grams solid or ml liquid food you consume. That will tell you how many calories you are consuming based on the amount of calories per sering based in grams.
It takes about 3500 calories to lose 1 pound US weight or about 1/2 Kg. 1Kg = 2.2 Lb US0 -
right, when you enter a new food I would personally use 100gr as base (I have no idea why mfp asks for servings per container, it's annoying especially as you can't just skip it). I usually enter it per 100gr, because Australia is metric too and when I weigh my food I can enter it better that way, and then just say how many 100 gr servings there are in each container. I don't know whether that is the right way :-)0
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you can either edit it or for example, if its 100g but you ate 50g, just put .5 of a serving0
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Hi there,
I want to track my daily food with MyFitnessPal app, but actually I do not really understand the intention of entering nutrition data on the basis of a portion size and why I should enter number of servings per container.
Typically nutrition information is given per 100 g in Germany, so I would like to enter it this way. But if I choose serving size 100g I obviously can't enter additional information for a standard serving size like 50 g cereals, 1 EL (Esslöffel = engl. tablespoon = 10 g), 1 Glas (200 ml), 1 Stück (5,5 g) or something like that. How can I do this?
What is the intention or philosophy for entering food in the myfitnesspal database? Can anyone tell me it?
Alex
1 tablespoon depends on which country the person lives when they entered it, for example the UK tbsp is 15ml, the Australian tbsp is 20ml0 -
In short, the philosophy is because that is how they do it in the U.S, and both mfp and the majority of the users here are Americans.
Here in Europe, per 100 g/ml is more common, and it's easy to calculate in comparison. 1 tbsp? 15 ml here. 0.15 servings of 100 ml. I suggest you just add value per 100 gram or have the amount of servings so the 'per container' totals 100 g. Example: 1 tsp sugar? About 5 g. 20 servings per container gives 100 g.
I hope that helped some0 -
if you enter a food with 100 grams as the portion / serving size then if you want to enter a tablespoon (10g of cereal) in the diary you put in 0.1 servings ie 1/10th.0
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Not sure I understNd the question, but the serving size is just a standard of measure. i.e. if something is measured as 100g being one serving and you have 50g, then you would log 1/2 serving. Simple math. I must be missing something,
First, sorry for my late answer.
Math is not the problem; it's also not a problem to enter new food as 100 g being one serving size.
8 months ago I started tracking my food using the Shape Up Club app. But after the last desastrously update I decided to switch to myfitnesspal. I've already testing myfitnesspal for a few weeks before because of the numerous partner apps like runkeeper, withings and Jawbone UP.
One good feature of Shape Up is the input of every food nutrition on the base of 100 g. Additionally it's possible to enter a serving/portion size (combination of a label and measure/unit), e.g. 1 piece / 40 g, 1 tbsp / 15 g, 1 glass / 200 ml, 1 slice / 20 g, 1 portion / 300 g etc.
The base of 100 g is really good for comparison of similar food from different manufacturers and in Germany 100 g is the typical basis the manufacturers use for indicating nutritional data of their products. So I can quickly read and enter the values and I do not have to manually calculate the values for a different serving size; the software does it automatically faster for me without mistakes and without rounding errors.
Of course I can enter new food with serving size 100 g (and so I do currently). The actual food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks then of course is a fraction or multiple of 100 g. But I really find it useful to choose from additional serving sizes.
Example #1: one complete chocolate candy (because I love chocolate :-) )
The complete chocolate weighs 150 g and consists of 6 x 4 = 24 pieces (each 6.25 g).
In my opinion It would be great to enter the nutrional data based on 100 g and then to enter the following serving sizes:
1 bar = 150 g
1 portion = 25 g (= 4 pieces)
1 piece = 6.25 g
I think it's easier and faster to enter 3 pieces than to calculate 3 x 6.25 g = 18.75 g. The software should calculate it for me! ;-)
Example #2: milk
Entering nutrional data based on 100 ml and entering the following serving sizes:
1 bottle = 1000 ml
1 bag = 500 ml
half-pint = 240 ml
1 glass = 200 ml
1 tbsp = 10 ml
Serving size "1 tbsp" is useful for entering recipes, "1 glass" is for breakfast or dinner, a muliply of "1 ml" could be used for entering the portion size of milk for my cereals.
Another topic would be the conversion from ml (liquid) to g (solid). Often it's easier to measure a food on the basis of it's weight, but many food information is based on volume size (ml). I would welcome the possibility to also enter the density (referring to room temperature) . Then I would be able to choose between mass and volume.
I hope you now understand my question regarding the "philosophy" of the term "serving size" in myfitnesspal.0 -
Not sure I understNd the question, but the serving size is just a standard of measure. i.e. if something is measured as 100g being one serving and you have 50g, then you would log 1/2 serving. Simple math. I must be missing something,
First, sorry for my late answer.
Math is not the problem; it's also not a problem to enter new food as 100 g being one serving size.
8 months ago I started tracking my food using the Shape Up Club app. But after the last desastrously update I decided to switch to myfitnesspal. I've already testing myfitnesspal for a few weeks before because of the numerous partner apps like runkeeper, withings and Jawbone UP.
One good feature of Shape Up is the input of every food nutrition on the base of 100 g. Additionally it's possible to enter a serving/portion size (combination of a label and measure/unit), e.g. 1 piece / 40 g, 1 tbsp / 15 g, 1 glass / 200 ml, 1 slice / 20 g, 1 portion / 300 g etc.
The base of 100 g is really good for comparison of similar food from different manufacturers and in Germany 100 g is the typical basis the manufacturers use for indicating nutritional data of their products. So I can quickly read and enter the values and I do not have to manually calculate the values for a different serving size; the software does it automatically faster for me without mistakes and without rounding errors.
Of course I can enter new food with serving size 100 g (and so I do currently). The actual food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks then of course is a fraction or multiple of 100 g. But I really find it useful to choose from additional serving sizes.
Example #1: one complete chocolate candy (because I love chocolate :-) )
The complete chocolate weighs 150 g and consists of 6 x 4 = 24 pieces (each 6.25 g).
In my opinion It would be great to enter the nutrional data based on 100 g and then to enter the following serving sizes:
1 bar = 150 g
1 portion = 25 g (= 4 pieces)
1 piece = 6.25 g
I think it's easier and faster to enter 3 pieces than to calculate 3 x 6.25 g = 18.75 g. The software should calculate it for me! ;-)
Example #2: milk
Entering nutrional data based on 100 ml and entering the following serving sizes:
1 bottle = 1000 ml
1 bag = 500 ml
half-pint = 240 ml
1 glass = 200 ml
1 tbsp = 10 ml
Serving size "1 tbsp" is useful for entering recipes, "1 glass" is for breakfast or dinner, a muliply of "1 ml" could be used for entering the portion size of milk for my cereals.
Another topic would be the conversion from ml (liquid) to g (solid). Often it's easier to measure a food on the basis of it's weight, but many food information is based on volume size (ml). I would welcome the possibility to also enter the density (referring to room temperature) . Then I would be able to choose between mass and volume.
I hope you now understand my question regarding the "philosophy" of the term "serving size" in myfitnesspal.
If I understand your question, you're asking the wrong people. The people who respond to posts on this forum are other MFP users. If you're trying to find out why the site doesn't allow you to enter multiple serving sizes for a single food entry in the database (although there ARE multiple serving sizes for some entries -- the ones without asterisks that I believe were entered by MFP staff -- those entries will generally offer 100 g, and several other options such as a volume measurement and some approximation of a "normal" serving, like a single piece of fruit of a defined size), you should post on one of the "Website suggestions" forum, I think.
In the meantime, you could create multiple entries for a particular food. In your example, you might create Chocolate candy - 1 bar (150 g), Chocolate candy - 1 portion (25 g = 4 pieces), and Chocolate candy - 1 piece (6.25 g), with the appropriate nutrition information for each amount. There are lots of entries in the database that people have created presumably to reflect the amount they normally eat of something, so they don't have to change the number of servings when they add it to their diary, I guess. One advantage to doing that is that you won't get entries in your diary like "Butter, 2 tsp (14 g)" because you selected 2 servings of "Butter, 1 tsp (14 g)," and the MFP software doesn't recognize that the parenthetical information needs to be adjusted when a person doesn't have exactly 1 serving.0 -
Not sure I understNd the question, but the serving size is just a standard of measure. i.e. if something is measured as 100g being one serving and you have 50g, then you would log 1/2 serving. Simple math. I must be missing something,
First, sorry for my late answer.
Math is not the problem; it's also not a problem to enter new food as 100 g being one serving size.
8 months ago I started tracking my food using the Shape Up Club app. But after the last desastrously update I decided to switch to myfitnesspal. I've already testing myfitnesspal for a few weeks before because of the numerous partner apps like runkeeper, withings and Jawbone UP.
One good feature of Shape Up is the input of every food nutrition on the base of 100 g. Additionally it's possible to enter a serving/portion size (combination of a label and measure/unit), e.g. 1 piece / 40 g, 1 tbsp / 15 g, 1 glass / 200 ml, 1 slice / 20 g, 1 portion / 300 g etc.
The base of 100 g is really good for comparison of similar food from different manufacturers and in Germany 100 g is the typical basis the manufacturers use for indicating nutritional data of their products. So I can quickly read and enter the values and I do not have to manually calculate the values for a different serving size; the software does it automatically faster for me without mistakes and without rounding errors.
Of course I can enter new food with serving size 100 g (and so I do currently). The actual food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks then of course is a fraction or multiple of 100 g. But I really find it useful to choose from additional serving sizes.
Example #1: one complete chocolate candy (because I love chocolate :-) )
The complete chocolate weighs 150 g and consists of 6 x 4 = 24 pieces (each 6.25 g).
In my opinion It would be great to enter the nutrional data based on 100 g and then to enter the following serving sizes:
1 bar = 150 g
1 portion = 25 g (= 4 pieces)
1 piece = 6.25 g
I think it's easier and faster to enter 3 pieces than to calculate 3 x 6.25 g = 18.75 g. The software should calculate it for me! ;-)
Example #2: milk
Entering nutrional data based on 100 ml and entering the following serving sizes:
1 bottle = 1000 ml
1 bag = 500 ml
half-pint = 240 ml
1 glass = 200 ml
1 tbsp = 10 ml
Serving size "1 tbsp" is useful for entering recipes, "1 glass" is for breakfast or dinner, a muliply of "1 ml" could be used for entering the portion size of milk for my cereals.
Another topic would be the conversion from ml (liquid) to g (solid). Often it's easier to measure a food on the basis of it's weight, but many food information is based on volume size (ml). I would welcome the possibility to also enter the density (referring to room temperature) . Then I would be able to choose between mass and volume.
I hope you now understand my question regarding the "philosophy" of the term "serving size" in myfitnesspal.
1 tbsp in the UK is 15ml
1 tbsp in Australia is 20ml
just sayin'0 -
I hope you now understand my question regarding the "philosophy" of the term "serving size" in myfitnesspal.
The MFP database is not made up by a professional staff. Ordinary people who live in countries all over the world enter the data. That's why it varies. There is no universal philosophy about serving size.
Another way to go about it: decide your goal weight (say 160 pounds). Find out how many calories a 160 pound person eats per day to maintain that weight. If you stay within those calories eventually you will weight 160 pounds.
Not to compare people to dogs, but this is what I did when my dog was overweight. I looked at the food/weight chart on the side of the dog food bag. A 65 pound dog should eat XX cups of food a day. I fed my dog that amount and eventually she weighted 65 pounds. The same principle holds true for people.0 -
My initial question has been answered. Many thanks for all your responses!
In the meantime I gained a little bit more experience with entering my daily food.
Regarding the other topic - alternative serving sizes - I'll move to another message board.0 -
Looks like MFP developers are going to implement different servings feature soon: https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/300068-the-serving-size-i-need-to-log-is-not-available-0
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