Counting calories (newbie)

ErikaAurelia
ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Seems like this is a big and important thing here. I did not even consider doing this when I joined yesterday but I'm starting to change my mind.
I am not sure how to do this though, I understand that I will have to weigh my food. With things like salmon that is probably easy because I can find exact calories it contain per 100g and how much fat and protein etc.
But how do you do with sauce? the ones you've mixed yourself or when you eat at a friends place? Do you count the tablespoons you take of it and do somekind of % calculation? like the total amount of sauce you made and how much of it you took? If you don't know what it contains, do you make a guess? If you can't weigh the food (like, at the friends place), how do you do then?
If you press some lemon over your food, do you try to calculate the calories of that as well?

I'm seeing so many things that can make this hard.

Replies

  • lvadmama
    lvadmama Posts: 30 Member
    Commercial sauces are easy, many/most are in the database on the app already. Homemade sauces are a bit different. I enter them as a recipe, ingredient by ingredient, in the diary and save for future reference. It's a little tricky at first, especially if you're a "this & that" cook as I am. The habit of measuring and weighing becomes established quickly though.
    Asking a friend what's in their creation and how much shouldn't be a big deal.
    A squeeze of lemon is a freebie in my thinking! More than a squeeze though and I measure or search in the database.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    Thank you for the answer, and the link. I don't want to bring a scale to a friends place and I do think it is weird to ask what is in the sauce, especially if I eat there often.
    I have to look around a bit more here too, I don't know many of the functions this site got.

    I will think a bit more before I buy a scale :smile:
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    I've bought a scale now and I've weigh all I had in my breakfast, but I am getting confused by the system to add meals here. Like, I ate omelett, 2 eggs. When I search for eggs on a site that I am more used to I get very different calories for boiled, raw and fried eggs. Since I made an omelett I went with fried since that is what I suppose it is (says 100g of fried egg is 197 calories). Going with those numbers I end up at about 240 calories for the eggs.

    Now, there are options for omelette in the food database here, most of them are very different in the calories of one serving, so I just picked the one that was the closest. But then the food diary don't pick up any protein, fat or anything from it, only the calories...

    This makes me wonder if I should just search down fried eggs instead, but the calories in the database don't have anything near 197 kcal (only a few things that don't really sound like fried eggs).

    Whaaaaat am I doing wrooooong? This is so confusing!
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    I see that they mostly go by "1 egg" and not "100g egg", but still, my eggs were about 60g each, which would make 118 kcal (for one fried egg), none of them have that.
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    Noooow I found something that sounds more like it! Took me looking silly here first to find it, looks like it is easier to find things on this site by using google than to search on this site >_>
  • samgamgee
    samgamgee Posts: 398 Member
    You should be weighing the raw ingredients :)
  • kmsoucy457
    kmsoucy457 Posts: 237 Member
    Your most commonly eaten foods are saved, so once you find the correct item (i google new food items for nutrition info as well) it takes a lot less time to log your food.
    You can also save meals under the "Quick Tools" options, and copy meals from one day/time to another. If you're guessing on calorie count just use the highest calorie entry in the database, and overestimate your serving. In a real pinch, quick-add calories will suffice.
    Ivadmama already mentioned recipes: I weigh each ingredient for complete nutrition info, then weigh the finished product, decide how much I want in a serving, and divide the recipe by that #. Lots of folks here use 1 serving = 1 gram, so a 65g serving would be put down as 65 servings. Do whichever works best for you.
    These are the things that helped me the most when I started out. After a week or so it gets much easier, so keep at it! GL
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    Thank you for your answer :) I have realized that I eat too little, so it was probably good that I started counting calories (I eat ~ 1050-1100 kcal a day instead of 1850). I need to figure out what I can add that will be easy for me.

    I tried to save some meals, will I be able to remove things from that saved meal if I don't have one of the ingredients next time? Guess I will find out when I try, haha.
  • PiSquared
    PiSquared Posts: 148 Member
    A tip for sauces, condiments, and other gooey ingredients...put the whole jar/bottle on the scale and tare the scale. Now, take whatever you want out and put on your food as normal. The scale will register the weight as a negative number. This is how much sauce/mayonnaise/peanut butter/whatever you used. Easy peasy, and no mess.
  • ErikaAurelia
    ErikaAurelia Posts: 127 Member
    PiSquared wrote: »
    A tip for sauces, condiments, and other gooey ingredients...put the whole jar/bottle on the scale and tare the scale. Now, take whatever you want out and put on your food as normal. The scale will register the weight as a negative number. This is how much sauce/mayonnaise/peanut butter/whatever you used. Easy peasy, and no mess.

    Thank you for the tip! I'm not sure if I am able to tare this scale that I have, but I suppose it would work just as fine to just put it there and see how much goes away.

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