Figuring out cals/how detailed do you track?

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psychicmedium26
psychicmedium26 Posts: 48
in Health and Weight Loss
Im having a hard time really figuring out calories and fats in foods we make because a lot of what we make is homemade. Im putting in my recipies from scratch and coming up with calorie counts but i cant help but wonder if i a doing everything correctly.

When you track how accurately do you track? If you are eating something basic like a pork chop do you select pork chop cooked from the database or are you more specific? Im obviously a newbie but Im just curious how others do this. I know I will get the hang of tracking i just find it a little frustrating to figure out the cals sometimes.

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  • sneaks
    sneaks Posts: 19
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    I make a lot of homemade stuff, so I often use a calorie-cookbook, like hairy dieters, cook yourself slim and then hubby does a comparison calculation of all the ingredients (because he is a massive nerd) to check whether it's correct.

    I get annoyed with weighing things because I want food NOW and hot and he prefers to stand around once things are cooked to weight it all into bits and let it get cold, so now I weigh everything uncooked and bung it in and if I over-cook (ie. make 6 portions) I'll divide it accordingly. I also cook things that I can cook in different pans e.g. if we have pasta, I'll weight out two portions and cook in separate pans so neither of us get more/less than we should have. It does help that we're both on a diet though!
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    I enter my recipes a lot into the database...it's usually serving size I have issues with...

    As for the rest...If I am cooking just for me I weigh all my food pre cooking...raw meat, dry pasta/rice and uncooked veggies as the USDA site and entries here are the most accurate.

    If I am cooking for others I google the nutrional value of the "cooked" item and find the correct entry here...and use it based on it's decription...

    IE roasted chicken with skin and bone...or roasted chicken no skin no bone...

    Porkchop..if it's roasted in teh oven I choose that one, fried in a pan (bleck) that one...

    most accurate is raw tho...
  • cally69
    cally69 Posts: 182 Member
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    If it's an ingredient that I'm unsure about I do a google search and see what answers come up from lots of different calorie websites so I can get a better idea of what ballpark the food item is in. Ultimately it's never going to be completely accurate anyway so I pick either the one that comes up the most as more likely to be nearest or I go somewhere in between. Hope this helps x

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