Logging food help

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JBY9859
JBY9859 Posts: 3 Member
in Getting Started
New to My Fitness Pal. I'm wanting to go ahead and log some of the foods I eat regularly when I have time instead of just when I eat it. How do I enter and save these future foods? I would like them already in my foods ready to go when needed.

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  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    edited September 2021
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    Hello!

    As you log things in the diary, you will build up a list of "recent foods." You can filter that list to show only foods you've recently logged for the meal you're adding to, or to show foods logged for all meals; the controls are above the food list.

    You can also update any day in your diary at any time, so if you have a daily snack you can just go ahead and log that for the whole week. If you wanted to build up your recents list more quickly, you could go to some date in the past and just log a bunch of stuff you eat often in there.

    I pre-log entire days, sometimes entire weeks ahead of time on Sunday nights, because I batch-cook and meal prep a lot of my food. I've found that extremely helpful in controlling my unplanned snacking; some weeks I've prepped a lighter lunch, for instance, so I know I can fit a packet of peanut M&Ms from the work vending machine into my budget. Or, as another example, I have a weekly team meeting at work every Friday, and we take it in turns to bring snacks. I don't know what the snack will be exactly in advance (unless it's my turn to bring it), but pre-logging my week lets me know if I have room to spare for a little something-something on Friday morning, or if I'll need to politely decline the donuts/pastries/whatever.
  • JBY9859
    JBY9859 Posts: 3 Member
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    Great help! I do a lot of food prep as well as a good amount of meals that have been modified to reduce sodium intake. I was hoping I could work on entering them as it will once again be a lot of recreating a recipe. Your suggestions are exactly what I was hoping for. Actually it is my wife who does most of the prep and meal creating. :D Thanks again!
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
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    Sounds like the ‘Recipe’ builder part of MFP will also be useful to you. In that part of the site/app you can create and save your own recipes (and also import recipes from elsewhere on the net) then access them from your food diary to add when you eat a portion.
  • JBY9859
    JBY9859 Posts: 3 Member
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    I was really happy when I saw the recipe builder but that's when I realized I didn't know how to create at my convenience for a later date. Now that I know how to do that, I'm good to go! Looking forward to this new venture!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,164 Member
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    Since I didn't see it mentioned: Also check out the "meals" feature. That's good for groups of things you often eat together, but not necessarily in the same relative amounts. You can save a group of foods as a meal, then bring it back into a subsequent day. A recipe comes back in as a one-liner, but a meal comes in as a list of items. You can then tweak the quantities in your diary for a particular day.

    Both recipes and meals are useful, but in slightly different situations.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    And for future logging using Ann's method which I prefer - pick a long past date, prior to start date.
    Find the foods that are correct entries and build your meal with whatever.
    Do option to save that group as a Meal.
    Now you can delete all those entries if desired, or do another common dish/meal, and another.
    If you leave that past entry the foods will show up in your Frequent and Recent list for easy pickings too.

    I haven't tested, perhaps if you delete them they remain in the list, but it used to be they had to be in a diary entry at some point.
    That way you could create a dinner with everything you might have for dinner, not that you'd do it all at once.
    But since they are in a list now, easy to find.

    Then once you've actually used the items in true logging - you can go back and delete that bogus day.
  • sowmyanatz
    sowmyanatz Posts: 2 Member
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    Hi, I am also new to Myfitness. I measure by grams. In the app, it shows 1 serving, BUT does not indicate the number of grams one serving is. Can someone help?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    sowmyanatz wrote: »
    Hi, I am also new to Myfitness. I measure by grams. In the app, it shows 1 serving, BUT does not indicate the number of grams one serving is. Can someone help?

    What's the item?
    Plenty of items shows grams.

    Anything with a label - the label shows the grams per servings, even if the entry doesn't.
    Entry could show cups or spoons for that matter - and with a label in hand with correct grams, who cares, you know how many servings you had even though you didn't use less accurate cups or spoons.
  • viajera99
    viajera99 Posts: 252 Member
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    sowmyanatz wrote: »
    Hi, I am also new to Myfitness. I measure by grams. In the app, it shows 1 serving, BUT does not indicate the number of grams one serving is. Can someone help?
    All the entries have a drop down menu on the right. Find an entry for item, click the DD menu and select grams. If it doesn't have grams as an option, search for another entry for the item until you find one that does.

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