Tracking Food

peggyrenninger12
peggyrenninger12 Posts: 2 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Hello! My name is Peggy. Does anyone have a tip on how to log your food?

Replies

  • nsk1951
    nsk1951 Posts: 280 Member
    My tip .. I find it difficult to remember exactly or to find the food on the data base sometimes .. so I've taken to writing it all down in a small notepad so that I can take my time later entering it into the logging system, when I have more time to look things up without forgetting or guestimating.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 5,144 Member
    I take the exact opposite tack. I pre log anywhere from a day to five days out.

    This gives me a plan I can work within. I know what and when I’ll be eating. If I need to make a substitution- as often happens- I know how many calories I have to work with. I know I have satisfying snacks invoking, which usually helps keep me out of empty calorie or spur of the moment snacks.

    It also helps me budget my calories, much as I budget my monetary budget. I know I have X amount to spend and it behooves me not to go over without consequences.

    Plus, it helps me with grocery shopping. I know what I need and exactly when I’ll need it, and keeps me from grabbing temptations.

    My husband is also on MFP. He is able to copy my lunch, dinner, and evening dessert, so my preference-logging helps him as well.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 5,144 Member
    edited May 27
    The thing is, when you’re starting, you don’t have to have flawless execution. I entered a few days items before I buckled down, and realized to my utter horror, I was eating 10,000+ a day.


    Just seeing that in black and white was a Come to Jesus moment for me…..

    ……As was the first time an exercise logged from a tracker to MFP and I made the correlation how doggone much work it took to earn enough calories for a single serving of nomnoms, much less the whole family sized package.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 4,043 Member
    peggyrenninger12 wrote: »
    Hello! My name is Peggy. Does anyone have a tip on how to log your food?

    Your question is kind of broad, so I'm not sure what type of advice you're looking for.
    I would recommend:
    - using the tare function on your scale. For example: put jar of peanut butter on the scale, press the tare button, scoop out peanut butter and spread on your bread, put the jar back on the scale, the negative number is how much peanut butter you should log. And you can lick the knife guilt free 🙂
    - take your time finding accurate food database entries. Most entries are crowdsourced and many of them are wrong or incomplete. Check against the label, and for whole foods you can check against the USDA database. It takes time at the beginning, but it will become easier as you build up your frequent foods list
    - learn to log homemade food, using either the recipe builder or (my preferred option) the meal function. It's especially useful when you cook for several people and want to be precise about how much you are eating: if you weigh the total finished dish and weight the portion you eat, it's easy to calculate your share
  • MsCzar
    MsCzar Posts: 768 Member
    edited May 27
    Some things I've found helpful:
    Get thee a good digital food scale and - and at least to start - weigh and measure EVERY morsel that crosses your lips. When I first started, my idea of what constitutes a 'serving' was well divorced from reality. This was especially relevant when it came to making what I thought were healthy choices - like egg or tuna salad, reduced calorie salad dressings, cereal or nuts.
    I keep a dry erase board on the fridge in the kitchen. It helps me quickly record food amounts and ingredients when cooking.
    Logging ASAP rather than waiting until the end of the day not only helped me not forget to log everything, but encouraged me to stick to plan. I can't tell you how many times I thought I'd eaten far too many calories early in the day and want to just give up, only to see that it wasn't all THAT bad.
  • gpanda103
    gpanda103 Posts: 175 Member
    Food scale, eat the same thing/similar foods everyday, and make use of the recipe and meal features

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