Logging meals that you don't know the cal content of

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idauria
idauria Posts: 1,037 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I made a stir fry last night - chicken breast, onions, red pepper, and sugar snap peas. (the whole recipe contained 4 breasts, 3 onions, 1 pepper, and a few cups of the sugar snaps). I also used some garlic and ginger and low sodium soy sauce for flavor plus I combined 1/2 cup of no salt chicken stock with 1/2 cup of the soy sauce to make a sauce for the entire dish. I ate it without any rice. So how do I know how many cals I consumed? I will be eating this for dinner again tonight and I'd like to figure out how to log it. Do I add up the cals for all the individual items and then try to divide portion sizes?

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  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    you can either put it all in the recipe section, which'll give you a portion size, or just estimate the amount in the serving you have and put each individual ingredient in your diary.

    the recipe section is great, i only just discovered it myself the other day!!
  • foxxybrown
    foxxybrown Posts: 838 Member
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    Yes, add them up and then divide.
  • kathleennf
    kathleennf Posts: 606 Member
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    I use the recipe calculator all the time. It's really easy.
  • nicoleat1049
    nicoleat1049 Posts: 18 Member
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    I also just discovered the recipie section. Just input each of your ingredients (the total amount in the recipie, not just what you ate) and then fill in the number of servings it makes based off of what you ate (makes 3 servings if you ate 1/3 of it). It caluculates everything for you, and it's saved there for leftovers and the next time you make it. I used it this week for turkey meatballs, and it made it so easy :)
  • rwd5046
    rwd5046 Posts: 302
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    Enter the ingredients under the food tab in create a new receipe and it will do it all for you. You just have to know how many servings the receipe has in it.
  • medoria
    medoria Posts: 673 Member
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    What I do is a weigh everything, put down the caloriecount for every single item, add them and then when its finished I weigh the whole thing, divided the amount of calories the whole meal contains with how many 100 grams it consists of. That way I get a energycontent per 100 grams of the food.

    Ex
    All put togehter it ways 650 grams and contains 1350 calories. 1350 / 6,.5 is equal with 207 per 100 gram. If you eat say 250 gram that meal is a 520 caloriemeal.

    Sorry if it sounds to complicated, english is a foreign languge and im a dietgeek and know all this by heart but explaining is not my strong suit,
  • jjs22
    jjs22 Posts: 156
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    "Do I add up the cals for all the individual items and then try to divide portion sizes? "

    That's what I do. When I started my diet (first time ever !) I put a special hook on the kitchen wall to hang a clipboard/pen on. Whenever I cook, especially if its not from a recipe, I write down the amount of of each ingredient I use. Whenever there's time (waiting on a dish, after dinner, etc.) I go through and add up all the calories. If its written on a package, I use that. Otherwise, I just Google it : e.g., "Potato calories".

    Once I have the total number of calories, I decide how to divide it up. Sometimes I just do it by eye, sometimes I weigh the completed dish before serving, and especially for a soup or something that I make a lot of for freezing, I literally divide it into equal servings in ziploc; I just write the calories on the bag.
  • idauria
    idauria Posts: 1,037 Member
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    Thanks everyone! I just went to the recipes section and added all my ingredients together. I had to guess on the chicken breasts though. I had 4 of them but I am pretty sure they weighed more than 4 oz, more like 6 so that's what I used. I put 6 servings and it comes out to 194 per serving. Not bad if it's accurate!

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