home chef & sick of logging....

It can be frustrating, but it's worth it for better accuracy. If you don't want to log while cooking, write everything down on paper and log it later. I also like to create the recipes and input all the ingredients before I start cooking with guesstimates of the weights, so during cooking I just have to adjust the amounts.

Quistadora wrote: »

My biggest hurdle with using MFP to log food is the amount I COOK each week... it seems like I could spend hours a week just trying to input my very off the cuff recipes, getting anxious about my guestimations, frustrated with the slowness of the process.... How do you guys get around this? I sometimes will just try searching for something similar already in the database but that usually ends up with my eyebrows somewhere around my hairline when I see "400 Cal" for a cup of roasted broccoli... what are people PUTTING on their dang broc?

I bought a kitchen scale and it helps a lot! Also, once you get the hang of it, you can just wing it. Allso, 5 grams here and there don't effect me much to be honest. I'm only human. Cheers!

Yes I just posted something similar because I made all these recipes for the week. It took 4 hours to log them. 4 hours to make them. And the calorie counts are off from the recipe book so I guess I have to try something different next week! I will weight each ingredient and scan each item I use and then I will maybe some how mark it for me

Larger batch prep - so sometimes I chop all the onion I need for the week and store it chopped in the fridge, and the peppers, meat etc. And large batch cooked meals input as a recipe and then assigned portions, so the soup I made for lunches yesterday will be copy and pasted in for the next three days.
It's easier for me now, because most of the recipes I use I have done before, I just go into the recipe section and adjust the amounts of the ingredients based on what I have this time, since most of the actual ingredients stay the same. Saves a lot of time. I agree about learning what ingredients it matters to weigh- you can wipe out a deficit with fats and proteins if you don't know the portion size, but it would be pretty hard to physically eat enough broccoli in one meal to do that unless you'd smothered it in cheese sauce.

This isn't the ideal solution, but I really curbed my "throw it in the pot" cooking. Now I brainstorm what I want to make, jot the details on a post-it note, and then pre-log the recipe. For me, the trade-off for more consistent results was worth it, although I can't say it would be for everyone.

Some things I weigh or measure- butter, meats, cooked rice. My daughters do MFP with me and we actually use a 1/2 cup measure as our rice serving “spoon”

Other things I do “close enough” so that it isn’t frustrating: for a salad, I’ll add “mixed greens” and “mixed vegetables” but I will log 1 hard boiled egg, 1 oz cheese, and I also have a 1/8 cup (eq. to 2 Tbs) to measure my dressing. I do not weigh and measure every variety leaf of lettuce or separate vegetables. If I use avocado I do weigh that separately

Some of my recipes vary slightly- I make chili with either all turkey, all beef, or 50/50 depending on who’s eating. My logged recipe is for 50/50 and I log that no matter which meat I used, as the rest is the same and it’s close enough. I log the same Mac n cheese recipe no matter what actual cheese or shape of pasta I use.

Like someone said above, I focus my time on the calorie-dense foods, and also on the meals/recipes I use most frequently. I don’t take much time weighing plain vegetables, and I look up a “close enough” food to log if I’m eating at a friends or restaurant without calorie counts.

here's how i do it:
keep a pad of paper in the kitchen
on my scale use the prep bowl
add all ingredients and TARE Between each one(zero is out)
log weight of food in g

while food is cooking i imput it into MFP

then set serving size to total weight of cooked product in oz or 10g increments