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I am new!!! and need help!!!

pagoca77
pagoca77 Posts: 5 Member
edited December 2024 in Introduce Yourself
Hi everyone!!

Hello from Germany!!!

Yesterday was my first day on the site. I cannot understand completely how this site works.
I really need to start controlling the amount of calories I am consuming, but it is a bit confusing on "how" has to be done. For example, on the page where you search for any type of food, I was happy to find the brand of the cereals I normally use here. But on the little window that says "how much" it gives 3 options: one is 100 gram, and the other two I do not know what they mean! So, for breakfast I usually take between 120 to 130 grams of cereals, where I put this?? apart from these three options, there is not other way to put 120 or 130 grams!!!

In addition to that, on the same window says "how many servings" What is one serving..... A bowl? A small bowl? If for example I ate a salad for lunch: 3 tomatoes, one avocado and 3 Lettuce leaves. How do I know how many calories are 3 tomatoes, one avocado and 3 Lettuce leaves?? where I write that???

Well....it is all so confusing!! I will appreciate any help you guys can give me...

Kind regards,

Paola

Replies

  • _beachready
    _beachready Posts: 67 Member
    Hello Paola :)

    Welcome to MFP; it really can be a bit confusing at first.

    So ok, if you have a scale to weigh your food, first obviously you weigh the empty container, then add the food, and substract the weight of the container.

    That's step 1. After that you type what food you want to log. Depends on the food, it has various measuring units, could be grams, oz, lbs, slice (usually has size or weight of said slice), tbsp, tsp... etc.

    So first you put which meal: breakfast, lunch, or dinner or whatever.

    Then on Serving Size, you click on the one you are using to scale your food. Most times I use grams, expect for liquids which I use fluid oz.

    This is the tricky part you have some confusion with. Some food are programmed differently, if your food has an option of 1 gram, click that. Then on 'Number of Servings', it adds how many 1gr you will have.

    Example: If you want to log in potatoes, click serving size and put 1gr, then if you scale it and get like 64gr, on 'number of servings' you are going to put 64, because it'll add the amount of 1gr your food has.

    Some foods have different units; like there's a cheese I always eat that only has on Serving Size: 28 grams. So let's say I only had 14 grams.. then on Number of Servings, I'll put 0.5 so it'll just log in half of the serving size.

    ***

    On your other confusion, that if you have a salad, you will have to log in ingredients individually how I mentioned above. Now, if it is a meal you eat repeatedly because you prepared it at home and always use the same ingredients, or it's a meal you frequently eat out at a restaurant, then you can make a Recipe, which will make a meal with the ingredients you use with weight and everything and say how many servings are in that. So for example if I were to make a big lasagna, I'd log it as a recipe with all the ingredients I used, and cut the lasagna in pieces, and then on number of servings, I'd put in how many servings that meal gives. So next time I have it I don't have to log in individual ingredients all the time. Saves a bunch of time.


    **

    Hope this was helpful and happy logging :)
  • duckforceone
    duckforceone Posts: 121 Member
    if the option only have 100g or 2 cups and the likes, and i have 130 gram of something, i just in servings type in 1.3.
    this updates the food to 130 grams.... :smile:
  • pagoca77
    pagoca77 Posts: 5 Member
    THANK SO MUCH GUYS FOR TAKING YOUR TIME AND SENDING ME A REPLY!!!
    I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL YOUR HELP!

    I already sent another message the same as this one, I did not see that you guys had already replied to this message. So if you see it, just leave it!!

    Thank you once again!

    Love,
    Paola
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