How do you do enter home made food or non chain food?

The database is crowd sourced, i.e., entered by regular users like you and me. We don't know what they put in things like breakfast burritos: Could be most anything, calorie and nutrition-wise.

When I make food at home, I either use the recipe feature in MFP, the meal feature, or (if it's something I won't make again and don't need to portion out with other people) I just log the ingredients in my diary. I wouldn't even try entering "breakfast burrito" for something I made myself. I'd be logging something more like "1 X brand tortilla, 1 egg, 50 grams brand Y refried beans, 28 grams brand Z cheese, . . . " etc.

If I planned to have something similar again but tweak details in the ingredients, I'd save it as a meal in MFP. If I used a formal recipe that I'd repeat exactly the same in the future, I'd input it as a recipe in MFP.

Non-chain food is more of an estimating process. I might log a similar dish from a chain restaurant, look at other people's entries in the database and pick one that seems at least middling-high in calories (ideally one that gives some idea of portion size), or mentally deconstruct the food and log the ingredients (maybe log a little extra butter or oil because they're often generous with that at restaurants).

That's what I'd do. That's what I've done for almost 9 years now, just under a year of loss, maintenance since. After an early learning curve, it hardly takes any time at all: More than worth it to me as the cost (in my time) to stay at a healthy weight. It would be a rare day that I spend as much as 10 minutes logging in a day.

Best wishes!

One of the huge benefits of learning to cook and log my own meals using a digital food scale is that I now can deconstruct restaurant food a lot more rationally. I now know how much a serving is of cheese, sour cream, guacamole, beans, tortilla sizes, rice.

The other thing you could do is pick some large chain like Taco Bell, and log one of their breakfast burritos from their website's nutrition. The important thing is to log something, regardless. It gets easier. When I'm out and having something I am not sure about, I'll sometimes take a picture so I can remember what was on the plate.

I find that now that I can cook most things and control the portions and ingredients I don't eat at restaurants very often, my own food is much better!

What sound advice from everyone above!

The whole point of MFP (to me, anyway) is the weighing and recording function.

No way would I rely on someone else’s entry. I’ve seen too many “homemade chocolate chip cookies for 20 calories” or “Suzie Q’s Apple Pie” for 50. There’s zero context. You don’t know the serving size, the ingredients, etc.

Some entries are fantasy entries, imho. Or something to show a spouse or doctor who doesn’t know better. “I’m trying but I just can lose weight in spite of these 10 calorie chocolate truffles I made.”

And then some poor souls comes along and copies those 10 calorie fantasy truffles into their own diary and can’t figure out why they’re not losing, either.

The only time I use ready made entries is when I’m getting coffee or a pastry/cookie/brownie. I use Starbucks entries because they make the most calorie laden products I can think of, so I figure if I enter a Starbucks item, I’m probably right on, or even over-charging myself. We just got back from a trip overseas, and hit bakeries every day. Sometimes twice a day. (Afternoon “coffee and cake” being big over there.) If you look at my food diary, you’ll see a buncha Starbucks entries, even though I haven’t stepped foot in one in six months or more.

For meals, I break down the ingredients, estimate the quantities, and will usually add a tablespoon or two of oil or butter for good measure, since most restaurants are lavish with it.

Don’t fret. You’ll get the rhythm of all of this, but it may take you a while. I’m still learning new tricks, more than five years in.

But logging was my lightbulb of in versus out. That was when I learned that a “serving” of Geneva cookies wasn’t the whole bag. 😇. And learned how much effort it took to burn off an actual serving. 😭