Figuring out calories

2ChaCha · February 2015

I know I probably look stupid, but I have the hardest time with this. I cook a lot. So when I make, say, a pot of chili, how do I figure out the calories and servings without dirtying every dish I own ladling it out to see exactly how many cups are in the pot and how many cups can be in a serving? This is the most frustrating part of diet tracking for me because unless I eat pre-packaged foods or individual foods it takes forever to weigh and measure every ingredient then do all the math. What's the easiest way??? And please don't leave hateful comments telling me how lazy and stupid I am. That seems to be the response I get to any question I post on these forums. I'm seriously just needing a little help to make all this less frustrating and time consuming.

crystalewhite · February 2015

You don't have to portion from a pot to see how many cups you have. The way I estimate is I use my 10 quart pot and my chili usually comes up about halfway up the side so 5 quarts. That's 20 one-cup servings. It's a little work to put in all your ingredients on the recipe builder function, so I only do it for recipies I make on a regular basis.

diannethegeek · February 2015

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1290491/how-and-why-to-use-a-digital-food-scale/p1
^I really like this post for some food scale ideas that might help you out with this. It's written from a kind of food scale 101 perspective, so you might have to skip the parts you already know.

futuremanda · February 2015

Hey! Just popping in to say I'm sorry you've felt unwelcome on the forums.

I think the link posted by diannethegeek was great! Hopefully it helps. Let us know if you still have questions.

sgthaggard · February 2015

Use a food scale. The number of portions in a recipe is the number of grams (minus the pot) of the total recipe. Each gram that goes into my bowl is a portion I consume.

So if I make a meat pie that is 1,248 grams, it has 1,248 portions. If I eat 158 grams, I eat 158 portions.

jennbo83 · February 2015

I hate figuring out calories! I am a perfectionist and I want to know exactly the correct number! I 100% understand your frustration. What I have learned is to do your best guess. I try to measure out everything I am putting into the recipe and then try to figure out what will be on average per serving. If you are going by a recipe it may also tell you how many servings the recipe will be and that can help you figure out your calories. I also like what crystalewhite said about going off the pot size. I think that's a great way to do it.

shamcd · February 2015

diannethegeek wrote: »

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1290491/how-and-why-to-use-a-digital-food-scale/p1
^I really like this post for some food scale ideas that might help you out with this. It's written from a kind of food scale 101 perspective, so you might have to skip the parts you already know.

Such an excellent, thorough explanation! Thank you for linking this

honeybee_kisses · February 2015

I'm glad I'm not the only one who struggles with this! There are 5 of us in our house so I usually just work out calories for the whole lot and then allocate myself a fifth of that. I know it's not 100% accurate (which bugs me!) but it's better than a rough guess I figure

beemerphile1 · February 2015

I just guess, it is working so far, 50 pounds gone in almost seven months.

KickinIt23 · March 2015

2ChaCha wrote: »

I know I probably look stupid, but I have the hardest time with this. I cook a lot. So when I make, say, a pot of chili, how do I figure out the calories and servings without dirtying every dish I own ladling it out to see exactly how many cups are in the pot and how many cups can be in a serving? This is the most frustrating part of diet tracking for me because unless I eat pre-packaged foods or individual foods it takes forever to weigh and measure every ingredient then do all the math. What's the easiest way??? And please don't leave hateful comments telling me how lazy and stupid I am. That seems to be the response I get to any question I post on these forums. I'm seriously just needing a little help to make all this less frustrating and time consuming.

If you found out how many calories your ladle holds, then just keep track of how many scoops you do, and then estimate when you don't fill it up all the way. You could go through your ingredient list and make up a spreadsheet. There may even be a software that has that information in a program online.

2ChaCha · April 2015

I have a scale and I use it a lot. But it's just me and my 7 year old, so I hate dirtying up a million measuring cups and dishes trying to figure out the calories in one meal for myself. That's all I'm wondering. I too am a perfectionist, because I know I will totally lie to myself if I estimate! But when I cook I don't usually go off recipes. I just throw stuff together. Like my chili is a few cans of whatnot, a pound of extra lean ground beef, and then cooked fresh onions, garlic and peppers. And with the meat, I never know if the calories on the package is raw, cooked, cooked with the fat drained off, or like I do it and drain the fat them rinse the meat to get all the extr

2ChaCha · April 2015

...extra grease and fat out of there, as much as I can.

janejellyroll · April 2015

I weigh all the solids that go into the dish and then weigh the finished dish (subtracting the weight of the pan, which I wrote down prior to cooking). I then enter it into the recipe builder. For servings, I put the number of grams in the finished dish (example: 500 grams is 500 servings). I then weigh my portion and log one serving for each gram. If it is something that is really obvious to portion, I may just enter basic serving sizes instead of doing servings by grams.

Once I got used to this routine, it only takes a tiny bit longer and I have greater confidence in what I'm logging. Bonus: I don't have to do any math (I hate math!).

Figuring out calories

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