Estimating calories

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farihahsarwar
farihahsarwar Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have to cook for a large family and I also work so I don't have the time or patience to measure all the ingredients while I cook.

Would it be ok to allocate 450 calories for dinner and then roughly try to eat that much? For example I've cooked a biryani and would have maybe a small sized plate of it and count it as 450 calls. Is this ok ?

Replies

  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    farihahsarwar wrote: »
    Hi everyone,

    I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have to cook for a large family and I also work so I don't have the time or patience to measure all the ingredients while I cook.

    Would it be ok to allocate 450 calories for dinner and then roughly try to eat that much? For example I've cooked a biryani and would have maybe a small sized plate of it and count it as 450 calls. Is this ok ?

    How do you know it has 450 calories if you didn't assess the calorie content of the individual ingredients, as well as how many servings it makes? Have you tried using the recipe builder?

    I will be the first to admit that I do not use a food scale for weighing my food, and I was able to successfully lose weight and maintain. HOWEVER, I know that is the most accurate way to determine your calorie input and I always recommend it to others, especially those just starting out.

  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
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    This is a recipe (no pun intended) for failure - it is all too easy to over estimate and fail to lose or underestimate and end up very hungry.

    Weigh each ingredient as you make up the dish, create a recipe in MFP, set the servings for the number of people that are eating the meal, add the meal to your diary for the day.
  • peachyfuzzle
    peachyfuzzle Posts: 1,122 Member
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    It is WAY too easy to underestimate calories if you're not pretty well experienced with measuring/weighing the types of food you're eating.

    450 calories isn't all that much depending on what you're eating, so it is easy to overshoot the mark by quite a lot.
  • 1Nana2many
    1Nana2many Posts: 172 Member
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    Keep a note pad or sticky notes and pen on the counter near where you are cooking and write down the amount of each ingredient as you add it to the recipe. It really is best if you use a scale and weigh everything. It can be a real eye-opening experience to see how much your "estimating" is off. Once you put the ingredients into the recipe and save it once, along with the number of servings it makes you can make that recipe any time and know how much a serving is and simply choose the recipe and save it do your food diary. One thing I have noticed is that you must check the list of ingredients after MFP says it's matched all the ingredients to make sure it really put in the correct amounts. Once that's done you are good and never have to do it again. At the beginning it's worth the extra effort to weigh and measure every thing so you're not fooling yourself. Remember...YOU ARE WORTH THIS EXTRA TIME AND EFFORT! You can't take very good care of your family if you're not taking good care of yourself.
  • fitdaisygrrl
    fitdaisygrrl Posts: 139 Member
    edited March 2016
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    As others have said, it's way too easy to underestimate calories and you really can't "guess" how many calories you're eating. If you don't have time to track your ingredients what about searching for similar recipes (with similar ingredients to what you used) on the tracker (whether on MFP or a site like Sparkpeople- a BIG recipe section there). You should still use a food scale and really measure your ingredients and/or portion, but if you track it using a similar recipe you would at least have a much better idea of what the calories are.
    I looked up a biryani recipe on sparkpeople for you (recipes.sparkpeople.com) https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=745843 and you can see here that it makes 6 portions, and per portion is 298 calories.

  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    use the recipe builder. weigh all the ingredients and put how many servings it is.

    not hard. and as long as you make it the same way each time, the recipe will always be accurate or you to use.

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