Skinny on Indian; Samples of your everyday diet please ?

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Just started on MFP (Previously tried WW to lose 25 lbs) in 2011. With pregnancy put that all on back and more.

I am a south/north Indian and so is my family's diet.

Morning - I try and do egg whites or smoothies in the morning. plus filter coffee

Afternoon - A cup of rice with sambar and a veggie fried. There is definitely scope for correction here to save calories.
Or black bean burger from morning star with one bread and a slice of veggie cheese.

Evening - Cookies, snacks and a cup of coffee [ really bad part of the day].

Night - 2 rotis or 2 dosas and a cup of sides.

Replies

  • alhamra
    alhamra Posts: 1
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    I am new to this app/site also & was wondering how does one go about counting calories/portion sizes for indian food/recepies?
    It just seems a lota work to work with indian cuisine vs scan or search an item otherwise.

    Any thoughts/suggestions you'd have?
  • AshwinA7
    AshwinA7 Posts: 102 Member
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    Indian recipes are really hard to calculate calories for because there are so many ingredients so approximations are going to be made.

    They do have a lot of Indian foods in the database but those are very much approximations since size can vary for a lot of things (paratha, samosa, etc.)

    You really just have to break down the ingredients to see the caloric value. Sambar, for example, has almost no caloric value at all since it's basically water and vegetables, but depending your family recipe, it might be different.

    For things like chapati and rice, you have to weigh and measure how much flour and how much rice your using.

    Most vegetables have very low caloric amounts. One things to watch for in a vegetarian diet are things like milk, eggs (if you eat them), and especially beans. A lot of your calories (and your protein, if your vegetarian) will come from beans - kidney beans, chickpeas, chana or other things like murmura.
  • UrbanLotus
    UrbanLotus Posts: 1,163 Member
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    You have to enter the ingredients in the recipe database, then save the recipe so you can use it over. Its a bit of work but not really a big deal - I don't add all the spices, don't really think you need to since most don't have calories.

    You guys can add me as a friend if you want, I'm Punjabi and cook Indian food sometimes, so you can get an idea of calorie counts etc - I'm eating kofta curry, rice, and raita for dinner :)
  • moondazed
    moondazed Posts: 73 Member
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    bump because I LOOOOOVE Indian food, but haven't eaten it in over a year because I always go crazy and will eat it all. With it being so calorie heavy I just avoid it all together. I think after I run Spartan Race in a month I'm going to reward myself with all you can eat Indian buffet.... :smooched: :smooched:

    I would love to discover some lower calorie options for such tasty food!
  • UrbanLotus
    UrbanLotus Posts: 1,163 Member
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    bump because I LOOOOOVE Indian food, but haven't eaten it in over a year because I always go crazy and will eat it all. With it being so calorie heavy I just avoid it all together. I think after I run Spartan Race in a month I'm going to reward myself with all you can eat Indian buffet.... :smooched: :smooched:

    I would love to discover some lower calorie options for such tasty food!

    Most homemade Indian food IS low calorie, the calorie heavy stuff is restaurant food - just like every other type of restaurant, that food will be much heavier than what you cook at home. For example, my dinner tonight - Kofta Curry, tomato raita, and rice, was 443 calories, and it was a LOT of food.