How to measure food

carrie197618
carrie197618 Posts: 34 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,
I hope I am posting in the right forum. I am not being able to figure out how to measure my food( duh I know but still)
For example if I am making a curry or noodles,how do I calorie count every single ingredient??? Specially if I am making for
The whole house. Also If i am eating in a restaurant how do I know what dish contains how many calories??? If someone can guide me will be very grateful
Cheers

Replies

  • Shazr2
    Shazr2 Posts: 33 Member
    If making for a family I'd weigh every individual item and divide by how may portions (in my case 4) then log every item in my diary. If I eat out I'd look for that item on my fitness pal and always log more calories for it as no idea what it's cooked in. Hope this helps
  • janetennet
    janetennet Posts: 143 Member
    This is just how I do it, it may be very different from what other people do.

    If I am making a meal at home I will add the entire ingredient list in the "My Recipes & Foods" section of the app, I then split the meal into however many meals it will make/ portion sizes and dish myself up this.
    I think you can also do this by weight as well but can't remember offhand.

    When it comes to restaurants, I try my best to stick to easier to log items and then over-estimate the calories/ portion that I eat. For instance if I'm having a lasagne I will look for the highest calorie lasagne I can find and log this. I find over-estimating instead of under-estimating is key when eating out.
  • Tyrannasaur
    Tyrannasaur Posts: 10 Member
    Check the restaurants menu/website for nutrition info. Lot's have it available, especially in the UK and I find most food from chain restaurants on mfp app.
  • pebble4321
    pebble4321 Posts: 1,132 Member
    The recipe tool is very handy for home cooking. You enter each ingredient in your recipe, note how many servings it makes and then save it. Then if you make it again next week, you can use the same entry over again.
    It takes time initially, but it's easy to go back and adjust if you use a different veggie in your curry next week, or add more coconut milk or take out the onions.

    For serving sizes, you can do this a couple of ways.
    - Sometimes I enter a number of servings - eg 4 servings, then you will eat a quarter of the dish,
    - Or I enter the number of grams of the finished dish (eg 1145g get entered as 1145 servings) then weigh your portion. If it's 300g, enter that as 300 servings.

    Restaurants are always going to be an estimate - even if they give you the nutrition info (doesn't happen often at the places I eat at), you can't guarantee that you are getting exactly the same item. That's OK though, all the numbers we work with are estimates, just take your best guess, it will work out OK.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    carrie197618 wrote: »
    Hi everyone,
    I hope I am posting in the right forum. I am not being able to figure out how to measure my food( duh I know but still)
    For example if I am making a curry or noodles,how do I calorie count every single ingredient??? Specially if I am making for
    The whole house. Also If i am eating in a restaurant how do I know what dish contains how many calories??? If someone can guide me will be very grateful
    Cheers

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1

  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    Pebble4321does exactly what I do. If it's easily portioned into equal portions, I'll just set that as the number. If not (or if everyone has vastly different amounts) I do the final weight of the cooked dish and subtract the weight of the pan, setting that as the number of portions to log my own by weight.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    Queenmunchy wrote: »
    Pebble4321does exactly what I do. If it's easily portioned into equal portions, I'll just set that as the number. If not (or if everyone has vastly different amounts) I do the final weight of the cooked dish and subtract the weight of the pan, setting that as the number of portions to log my own by weight.

    This is genius!
  • capaul42
    capaul42 Posts: 1,390 Member
    Queenmunchy wrote: »
    Pebble4321does exactly what I do. If it's easily portioned into equal portions, I'll just set that as the number. If not (or if everyone has vastly different amounts) I do the final weight of the cooked dish and subtract the weight of the pan, setting that as the number of portions to log my own by weight.

    This is what I do as well. Only 3 of us in the house and we all eat different portion sizes. I'm trying to lose, partner is trying to gain and my daughter is only 12. Her portions are similar to mine depending on what I make.

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