How do I count calories in homecooked meals? Also hi-cups?

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Hello,

New to counting calories- let's say I put 100 grams of brown rice in a bowl and then cooked them with usual salt and water.

Before taking the stuff in my plate- I measure and it comes out my portion is 50 grams- I just divide it-and I get 55 cals
since 100 grams has 111 cals. This was simple and easy but what about items like lentils ?

Yellow lentil- If it's cooked with little bit of oil, onion, spices and so forth. The whole dish prepared for 4 people- raw

is 125 grams after cooked-it can feed 4 people. So how do I deduce how many calories do I intake?

Any one else having being so picky about calories? - before I'm about to eat-it's like a chore now-spend like 10-15 mins on building and checking the facts. I feel like during my cutting phase of 12 weeks I should just eat same things every 4-5 times a day over the period like a prisoner and at least it'll make things easier.

Also- this is the first time I've changed my diet and started eating like 4-5 times a day instead of 3. I'm getting hicups for no reason ? is that normal?

I'm at 40%-35%-25% ratio Carbs, Protein, Fat. Also this is my first time I've done this level of protein-otherwise it used to be in low 15% lol

Replies

  • angerelle
    angerelle Posts: 175 Member
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    The recipe builder is what you need! (In My Recipes and Foods in the Android app). You enter all the ingredients and number of servings and it will calculate the calories per serving for you. Then it's already done next time you make that dish. I weigh the finished dish and use the number of grammes as the number of servings, then I can just weigh my portion and use the weight as the number of servings I had.
  • neohdiver
    neohdiver Posts: 738 Member
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    angerelle wrote: »
    The recipe builder is what you need! (In My Recipes and Foods in the Android app). You enter all the ingredients and number of servings and it will calculate the calories per serving for you. Then it's already done next time you make that dish. I weigh the finished dish and use the number of grammes as the number of servings, then I can just weigh my portion and use the weight as the number of servings I had.

    Ditto. I did have one dish that was apparently more servings than the recipe builder could handle, so divided by 100 and entered that number, so each serving was a 100 grams.

  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,123 Member
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    viren19890 wrote: »
    Hello,

    New to counting calories- let's say I put 100 grams of brown rice in a bowl and then cooked them with usual salt and water.

    Before taking the stuff in my plate- I measure and it comes out my portion is 50 grams- I just divide it-and I get 55 cals
    since 100 grams has 111 cals. This was simple and easy but what about items like lentils ?


    Yellow lentil- If it's cooked with little bit of oil, onion, spices and so forth. The whole dish prepared for 4 people- raw

    is 125 grams after cooked-it can feed 4 people. So how do I deduce how many calories do I intake?

    Any one else having being so picky about calories? - before I'm about to eat-it's like a chore now-spend like 10-15 mins on building and checking the facts. I feel like during my cutting phase of 12 weeks I should just eat same things every 4-5 times a day over the period like a prisoner and at least it'll make things easier.

    Also- this is the first time I've changed my diet and started eating like 4-5 times a day instead of 3. I'm getting hicups for no reason ? is that normal?

    I'm at 40%-35%-25% ratio Carbs, Protein, Fat. Also this is my first time I've done this level of protein-otherwise it used to be in low 15% lol

    There's a really big step you're missing that might affect your estimation. You most likely weighed out 110g of RAW rice, while your portion is 50g of COOKED rice. Cooked rice is more dense than raw rice (cooked rice has a lot of water), so what might be 50g of cooked rice might actually be 20g(ish) of raw rice. What I like to do is to look at the USDA's database to see if they have an option for the cooked food (like Rice, Brown, Long Grain, Cooked), or I weigh out the entire pot of rice, create a recipe based off how much uncooked rice I used (and use the weight of the cooked rice as my serving size, like Brown Rice Cooked -100g... 5 servings to note that the entire thing weighed 500g).

    For a mixed dish, I use MFP's recipe builder. Again, I input the raw weights of everything I'm cooking, cook it, and then weigh the entire dish (I weigh the empty dish before putting anyyhing in it and subtract it from the total weight of the dish + food to get the approximate weight of the food). I figure out a weighted serving size for the dish and then determine the number of servings based off the serving size (if I have 1000g of food and have a serving size of 50g, I would have 20 servings. If I have a serving size of 100g, I would have 10 servings). I then weigh out my portion and divide it by the serving size I listed within the recipe to get the total number of servings I consumed (If a recipe makes 1000g of food, one serving is 50g, and I eat 125g, I would log that I ate 2.5 servings).
  • MlleKelly
    MlleKelly Posts: 356 Member
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    I use the recipe builder ALL the time. If you're on the regular website (non-mobile), you can import recipes from websites and it will calculate all the calories and macros for you. You can also enter ingredients/recipes manually. Loves it!
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    recipe builder. i use it all the time.
  • simplycidalia
    simplycidalia Posts: 46 Member
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    When I get hiccups, it revolves around eating times -- like shortly after eating, because I'm digesting, and if I get up and move around, I get hiccups. So, you're eating more, digesting more often = hiccups. Could be a reason.
  • viren19890
    viren19890 Posts: 778 Member
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    Thanks all for the responses. I didn't know there was a recipe builder. So far I used - create my own food tab.

    What I also tried to do was- literally punch in every ingredient I ate -so as to end up with the whole dish but in my diary lol -so instead of it being 1 dish- it's like so many items which make one dish .
  • viren19890
    viren19890 Posts: 778 Member
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    When I get hiccups, it revolves around eating times -- like shortly after eating, because I'm digesting, and if I get up and move around, I get hiccups. So, you're eating more, digesting more often = hiccups. Could be a reason.

    I see- maybe that's what's causing it. I'm in caloric deficit but i've decreased the portion size increased the number of times I eat in a day .
  • Moriarek
    Moriarek Posts: 14 Member
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    I don't like recipe builder - for me it's useless for most of my dishes, I prefer "My dishes" because it let's me control every ingredient.

    I've been always taught to weigh my food raw, so to avoid confusion I try to weigh and cook my carbs (rice, pasta, potatos) separetly for every person (it's easy for rice, but you can get special pots for cooking pasta with "cooking baskets" - it also great for diced potatos).
  • stranger2310
    stranger2310 Posts: 28 Member
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    I always use the recipe builder for this - most of my recipes come from online cooking blogs. I do find it doesn't always match up the ingredients properly, so I almost always spend 10 minutes or so checking that it's all correct and editing amounts or replacing items. (Sometimes 3 cloves of garlic are equated to 8000 calories, so you've got to double check that everything looks right and there aren't any errors.)
  • angerelle
    angerelle Posts: 175 Member
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    MlleKelly wrote: »
    If you're on the regular website (non-mobile), you can import recipes from websites

    You can do this in the Android app too, but it's easiest the other way around - open the recipe you want in Chrome, then Share from the menu and choose the MFP app.