Calories in home-cooked meals?

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Kaolru
Kaolru Posts: 30 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I always feel like I'm in way over my head any time I try to start losing weight. I get overwhelmed easily and then give up.
I'm 27, female, 5'2" and I'm about 140lbs, or 145, or 138...depending on which scale I stepped on, what day it is, if the groundhog saw its shadow, and if the wind blew east or west that day...
Seriously, it's never ever consistent, which is annoying, and it has jumped up quite a bit recently.

Anyway, my calorie-intake is supposed to be 1,200 after a 500cal deficit. I am feeling a little hungry pretty much 24/7, which makes me think about food constantly. I know I need to be adding better quality foods and a lot more veggies to help with feeling full and satisfied. I've never been much of a cook though. I don't burn stuff, I just never know what to do with the ingredients I buy. I will go to the store, buy a bunch of veggies and then stand there staring at them for a while until I just grab a handful of snap peas declaring that this is my lunch, dinner, and essentially my life from here on out.

Even when I do get a spark in my head to make an actual meal, I don't know how to count the calories for something home-cooked. For a burger, that's easy. You're eating one bun, one measurable patty, a tomato, lettuce...etc. For something like a stir-fry, or a pasta dish with veggies and cheese, or a homemade pizza, or anything like that I don't know how to figure out the calories for my serving, or even what a serving should be of each.

Replies

  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,751 Member
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    I measure ingredients separately, and log them individually - either as a recipe to give myself a serve of, or an individual meal...

    Eg.

    Omelette - X jumbo eggs, X jumbo egg whites, X ml skim milk, 100g mushrooms, 100g red pepper, 100g zucchini, 30g light cheese

    Spaghetti bolognese - X grams dry pasta, 150g lean beef mince, 50g onion, 100g mushrooms, 100g zucchini, 350g tomato passata, 30g Parmesan cheese
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    Instead of buying stuff and then figuring out what to make, find a recipe you want to buy and buy ingredients for it
  • Theo166
    Theo166 Posts: 2,564 Member
    edited April 2017
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    Perfection is not required, just search for 'stir fry' and pick the most reasonable substitute for what you made. This still builds awareness and focuses you on portion control.
  • AgidGirl
    AgidGirl Posts: 138 Member
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    Here's what I do when I make a homemade meal:

    1. Start a new recipe (on MFP) and add all of the ingredients to the site/app (I do weigh all of the ingredients as I add them)
    2. Cook the meal
    3. Pour the meal into another container and weigh it on my scale
    4. Divide the weighed amount of food by the amount of servings I want the meal to be (EX: 40 ounces of weighed food = four 10 oz servings)
    5. Add the serving size to my recipe on MFP

    It's actually really easy!! If you are cooking a recipe you found on the internet you can even add the link to MFP and it will import all of the ingredients which makes it SUPER easy. You can TOTALLY do this!!
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited April 2017
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    This is what I would do for a fast and easy stir fry or pasta dish.

    Measure out a serving of pasta or rice and cook it. (You can make more or less than a serving, but until you have down the calories you want and so on, a serving is a good way to start.) The bag or box tells you how many grams (or .33 cup or whatever if you don't have a scale, but a scale makes everything easier, IMO). That is for the dry, unless it states otherwise.

    While the rice/pasta is cooking, take a big skillet, heat it to medium or medium high, add some oil (measure it out or use spray and log a small amount for that). Stir fry what you are going to add: lots of vegetables, whatever you have around, really (for example, I might use broccoli and zucchini, since I usually have them), mushrooms, chopped tomatoes, onion and garlic -- put them in depending on what they are and how fast they cook. Chop your protein and add it -- this works with really anything from tofu to chicken to shrimp or fish or lean beef or many other options (egg is great in a stir fry) -- again, add it depending on cooking time, or you can do it in a separate pan. Add in some things that seem good for flavor -- pine nuts or olives with a pasta dish, for example. Experiment with herbs and spices (if you can find it, I always recommend Japanese 7 spice for a stir fry). At the end mix it together -- you can turn the heat off or way down and add the rice and mix it around or mix the pasta and toppings in a bowl and add a little cheese at the end if you like.

    This is one of the ways I learned to cook regularly years ago. I also did recipes and cooked more complicated things and read some books on basic cooking, but I just played around with the ingredients I had on hand to see what tasted good to me.

    Another fast way to use vegetables is in an omelet, which I have for breakfast or dinner quite often. Again, I'll use what vegetables I have on hand, almost always including something like spinach or chard.

    A salad with a mix of hot and cold ingredients can be easy and good too -- I might do the basic salad with spinach and spring greens and then add some radish, cucumbers, tomato, whatever you like and then also add some roasted brussels sprouts or sauteed mushrooms and zucchini and then some cooked meat or tofu and mix it around. I'll make a dressing with vinegar and olive oil (or just balsamic) and add some extras like olives, cheese, seeds, again.

    For logging all of these things, if you are just cooking for you, I'd just note down the amount I used of each ingredient while chopping and then log it at the end (or after dinner). For whole ingredients you want to find the USDA entries, which someone can help you with -- it's easy after you do it a couple times.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited April 2017
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    Oh, for learning basic cooking, a great book to just thumb through and try things is Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything book. He also has one for vegetarians and a specific one for cooking fish. For ideas for using vegetables (I look up ideas when dealing with something new to me), Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love is good, and a classic is Greene on Greens (it covers all vegetables).

    Epicurious and 101cookbooks are good reliable sites that you can search by ingredient.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    You need to be using the recipe builder. It's a must use tool when doing any of your own cooking. Once you use it a few times it is really easy to use.
  • Kaolru
    Kaolru Posts: 30 Member
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    Thank you guys, all of this information is REALLY helpful! I appreciate it! I actually didn't even realize the recipe builder was a thing. I'm not sure how I missed it, but I'll definitely mess around with it some more. I think I'm just going to have to practice.

    Thank you again!
  • ConquerAndBloom
    ConquerAndBloom Posts: 94 Member
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    Kaolru wrote: »
    Thank you guys, all of this information is REALLY helpful! I appreciate it! I actually didn't even realize the recipe builder was a thing. I'm not sure how I missed it, but I'll definitely mess around with it some more. I think I'm just going to have to practice.

    Thank you again!

    The recipe builder is a godsend! My S/O is no longer counting calories but when we did together it made life so much easier!

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