Simplifying my Diet HELP!!!

Have you used the recipes builder at all? I use it for my basic recipes and just tweak ingredient amounts and serving size as needed. Cuts down on a lot of the work, and much better than trying to add individual ingredients to my diary every time!

That said, a lot of my meals are relatively simple. A protein (cooked simply - grilled, braised, or baked typically), vegetables (steamed or roasted, again limited ingredients) and/or a simple spinach salad, and a starch of some sort (rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.) Just be sure to account for any added oils or butter in the preparation.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

FluffyNoMore26 wrote: »

Calorie counting with homemade meals has always been cumbersome for me. First of all, I love cooking homemade meals, but I hate measuring out ingredients in my recipes. Then having to log each individual ingredient just takes up too much time, or maybe I'm just lazy. So I end up guessing at portions, or finding meals someone else has logged that is close to mine and long story short, my calories become imaginary points that never equal what I am actually ingesting.

This diet time around, I am going to try and simplify my meals.

What does that mean? Well to start I am going to try to eat meals with fewer ingredients and less steps to prepare.

Does anyone have any suggestions for simple meals that are easy to calorie count?

I seem to do fine with breakfast, but lunch and dinner are tricky. Today I had a Lean Cuisine for lunch but not sure if this is a good idea long term.

Use the recipe builder...then you only have to measure out and input your ingredients one time and can just select that meal whenever you have it.

^This. Recipe builder is your friend. The time you spend asking for an easy fix, you could have a recipe already input into MFP. Seriously, it's that easy

I agree about the recipe builder.

Also remember that when you find the right entries and use ingredients that they stay in your recent or frequent foods.

That said, I enjoy cooking, but most of my cooking (because of time) is pretty simple, and logging intensified that tendency. For example, a typical dinner when I was logging would be a protein, cooked pretty plainly, either a starchy side or perhaps some fruit (sometimes both), and vegetables. I'd log those ingredients and whatever oil I used in cooking (I usually don't log garlic, often don't log vinegar, if I am feeling lazy).

So a couple of examples:

pork chops with roasted acorn squash and roasted brussels sprouts on the side, cooked with apples, onions, and cabbage. That's 7 ingredients to log (including oil), but they'd likely all be in my diary, so it was just a matter of noting the ingredients -- far less work for me than trying to find some comparable entry which would be wrong anyway.

pasta with a homemade sauce with shrimp, zucchini, cauliflower, tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach, plus some pine nuts. 9 ingredients this time, again likely in my foods already, so just note down amounts.

If I am cooking multiple servings (usually), I note down the total amount and then log the whole and take a fifth (or whatever) and log a fifth of each of the amounts. To determine a fifth I might weigh the whole but more often I divide up the amounts when cooking is finished (including amounts for leftovers) and eyeball it -- when you have two servings to compare it's not hard to be pretty accurate.

For simplicity check out The Stone Soup. https://thestonesoup.com/blog/ All of the recipes are built around the idea of not having more than five ingredients. Some of the recipes are higher calorie than others, but some easy substitutions should help. The writer even includes some basic substitutions for things like paleo, gf, etc.

When I'm looking for something easy to make, that won't take a ton of time or break the bank it's one of my go-to resources.

Does making a larger batch of something (e.g. meaty pasta sauce) and freezing it in pre-made portions something that makes sense to you? If so that's also a way to help simplify and add consistency.

FluffyNoMore26 wrote: »

I also have this problem where I hardly ever follow the recipe, or the same recipe the same way. I just don't think the recipe builder would work for me because I hardly ever make the same thing twice. Simpler meals (fewer ingredients) I think is the only way I will be able to log correctly.

Any simple, few ingredient recipes to share?

I don't follow recipes ever (well, except for baking), but I still find the recipe builder useful, because you can put in what you used and set the serving size as you like (100 g is good, or 10). And when you make it again you can change quantities and delete and add ingredients.

As for simpler meals, do you want something different than what I gave immediately above? I guess I'm not understanding.

ceolyn wrote: »

For simplicity check out The Stone Soup. https://thestonesoup.com/blog/ All of the recipes are built around the idea of not having more than five ingredients. Some of the recipes are higher calorie than others, but some easy substitutions should help. The writer even includes some basic substitutions for things like paleo, gf, etc.

When I'm looking for something easy to make, that won't take a ton of time or break the bank it's one of my go-to resources.

Great site, thanks for posting link!

FluffyNoMore26 wrote: »

You guys talked me into the meal and recipe tool and I used it the first time this week. It actually worked out really easily... thanks to you all!

Yay!

I love cooking, but long days leave not much time in the kitchen so I have fallen in love with sheet pan dinners. You can basically pick a protein (chicken breast, turkey tenderloin, sausage, etc.), any veg that you like roasted (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, carrots, bok choy, asparagus, brussels sprouts etc) and I usually add something a little starchy or starch like (potato, sweet potato, parsnips, turnips) or make rice or pasta. It takes a little figuring to get the times and cuts down...potatoes and carrots usually go in first, depending on the size of the meat. I measure my oil before tossing the veggies with it, but that keeps portions under control.

For example- Turkey tenderloin, potatoes, and broccoli. Preheat oven to 425, cut potatoes about 1-1 1/2 inch cubes, toss in oil, salt & pepper, roast for about 15-20, remove pan, turn potatoes, add turkey tenderloins and broccoli (lightly oiled and seasoned) to pan and bake for about 20-25 minutes, turning broccoli after 10 minutes. And done.

I have started doing chicken fajitas the same way. You can adjust the cooking time somewhat by changing the cuts on the meat or potatoes. Most seasonings are negligible in calories, but if you have a combo that you love to use you can always premix, add it to your recipes, and measure it out for a quick add. You can even spray the oil instead of measuring it, just weight the container before and after and the difference would be your amount.

And here is another favorite, it has a few more ingredients but is simple. I fell in love with it after my sister sent us a box from Marley Spoon. https://blog.marleyspoon.com/one-sheet-sausage-roast-with-peppers-onions-and-fennel

I agree with those who have said recipe builder, but also did you expect this to be easy?

Take a Saturday afternoon, write down all the recipes you make regularly and everything that goes into them. Add up the calories, for the whole batch/sheet/pan/etc and then divide by how many meals you get out of it. You can then add that to the My Food section on MFP and you'll always have them. Remember to name them something specific that you will recognize as your own food. But seriously it's not tough to do, it just takes some time investment and some thought to determine the recipes you make on a regular basis.

Some websites that give you recipes will also tell you the calories per servings, and how many servings per batch. Be careful with that though: those calories are based on you using the exact same ingredients - down the brand - that they are using.