Calorie Counting

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cazkian2001
cazkian2001 Posts: 4
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi

I have tried and failed at calorie counting diets in the past beacuse they become too complicated.
How do those of you with families manage. Every time I start a diet i find myself eating ready meals as they are calorie counted already, then preparing seperate meals for my husband and son. Is there an easy way to calculate the calories in a home made meal? I am trying to battle all the things that normally make me fail - I really want to succeed this time.

Thanks

Caz

Replies

  • MsBaby117
    MsBaby117 Posts: 201 Member
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    If you click on the "tools" tab there is a tool where you can put in all the ingredients of what you are cooking and how many servings it makes and it calculates the calories.
  • Charloo1990
    Charloo1990 Posts: 619 Member
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    I know what you mean, its hard for me to have meals with family sometimes but say if your having a roast dinner for example, work out the cals off the pack for the gravy, use frozen yorkshire puddings i.e aunt bessie's so u know whats in them, work out whats in ur potatoes for roast and so on, its quite easy when you get the hang of it and eventualy u start to remember whats in stuff calorie wise.
  • SeaShell33
    SeaShell33 Posts: 141
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    It is so easy here, under recipes, you and build your own and # of servings and it tells you everything. I love this also because I have been able to adjust some of my recipes to make them healthier. good luck!
  • lisasdoinit
    lisasdoinit Posts: 216 Member
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    i try to figure it out ahead of time..so i know i'm giving my family stir fry tonight.

    i'll look up the points for 2 cups of veg, 1/2 cup brown rice, 3 ounces of chicken.

    it will mean two frying pans - one for them and one for me - my measured chicken and veg will be kept separate.

    the only thing i've noticed is the extra dishes lol!

    i only pre-cook a lot of stuff ..last night i was alone for dinner. So i boiled up a whole bag of shrimp, a box of quinoa and chopped up all my veggies in my fridge and put them all in containers. Now those items are in my "quick add" under "food diary" so i just have to click and ta da!

    i haven't use their recipe builder yet but same concept - make it and figure it out ahead of time, for quick reference later.

    Good luck!
  • allie1904
    allie1904 Posts: 248
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    I cook for my me and my boyfriend and when I'm making things like chilli or curry, I weigh everything as I go along including veggies and cook it. Then he has rice or wedges and I have leaves. Then I just divide the calories for the curry in half. He has more then me but it's just easier to split it in two.

    Things like pre-cut strifry packs are already counted and you can all enjoy stirfry.
  • Tonnina
    Tonnina Posts: 979 Member
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    It is so easy here, under recipes, you and build your own and # of servings and it tells you everything. I love this also because I have been able to adjust some of my recipes to make them healthier. good luck!

    This is one of my favorite tools here! :-)
  • dlaplume2
    dlaplume2 Posts: 1,658 Member
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    It is a little work up front but you can use the recipe builder and add the recipes there. Then you can choose those from your data base. You can go in and change it up a little if you modify the ingredients too.

    Best wishes
  • tuskegee4
    tuskegee4 Posts: 110 Member
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    Most people have already mentioned tools tab at top and creating your own recipes, but I started by using recipes from eatingwell.com and skinnytaste.com. Calories are counted for you and MFP has had every recipe I've cooked. As for the family and preparing seperate meals.....my wife and kids enjoy most of the meals I prepare, but on the rare occassions they don't I make them prepare their own. I usually tell them what I'm cooking ahead of time so they can take something else out.
  • LoriIAM
    LoriIAM Posts: 73 Member
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    There are many homemade and generic foods in the food bank. If I don't have time to put in my own recipes, which takes less time that I usually think, I just use somebody else's. I figure that it's probably pretty close. I figure that if I'm logging, I'm ok. I try to not be so religious about these things.
  • bliss78
    bliss78 Posts: 11 Member
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    I think the biggest frustration comes at the start because it seems cumbersome to have to weigh, enter, fuss w/ the labels but I promise you if your patient it will become much simpler ...by nature we tend to eat some standard staple items and meals again & again so once you get a few weeks built in you'll be able to just select those & I've found after measuring certain things like the right portion of shredded cheese I can blindly eyeball it now. I love mfp on my phone because its convenient but using the tool online makes quick work of selecting multiple items so on days when your like grr do that lol...
  • jfrog123
    jfrog123 Posts: 432 Member
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    I use the recipe builder just as many others have mentioned before me, but I do it in batches. Usually the day before I go to the grocery store I make a list of items that I need for the week. My husband, kids and I discuss what meals we would like to have for the upcoming week so that I can make sure to buy the ingredients for those meals. When I get home from the store I sit down and do the recipte builder for all the items I plan to cook that week. Of course, once I enter it I never have to do it again, I can just pull that recipe back up every time I fix that dish.

    There have been a couple of times that I had to enter the ingredients into recipe builder right as I was making the dish because I did not know how much of each item I was using. For example, when i make meatloaf for my family I throw everything in a bowl without measuring anything. When I started using mfp I took the time one Sunday afternoon to make the meatloaf and actually measure the ingredients so I could put the right quantities into recipe builder.

    It does take a little time to put the recipe in, but you can do each recipe as you make it, or you can input several at once like I do. And once they are in there you don't have to keep entering them, so it is really not so bad.
  • sunkisses
    sunkisses Posts: 2,365 Member
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    Visit some recipe sites and find a few you want to make. Make them when you have the time to. Freeze/refrigerate them into meal-sized portions. Reheat them when you need "convenient" food.

    What really worked for me was when I started cooking better and tastier food than I could get conveniently (either frozen or fast-food). I can make anything I want. Sites I like are cookinglight.com (recipe finder) and skinnytaste.com. These are foods the entire family can eat and enjoy. If they don't like it, your husband can cook for your child(ren), can't he?
  • LynneGG
    LynneGG Posts: 95 Member
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    Plan Plan Plan....when I work on my grocery list I look ahead and find new recipes or ways to modify existing ones. Like everyone is saying the recipe builder here is great!
  • reneeileen
    reneeileen Posts: 455 Member
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    One of the tools that I have found and loved here is the Android app. I take my phone with me into the kitchen and scan what I'm making as I make it. Once you have stuff inputted as recipes and saved in your recently eaten food it gets a lot easier. Ultimately what it comes down to is that you do need to start measuring portion sizes. I got an extra set of measuring cups from the dollar store and put them into my rice canister, my cereal canister... I have bowls with markings so that I can visually read a 1 cup serving. The work is in creating the habit but that habit has to be made.
  • KazziaLlewellynn
    KazziaLlewellynn Posts: 127 Member
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    I also don't deprive myself of anything. I cook whatever we're having, measure out a serving, and eat it. I don't make mine differently my whole family gets what I do. I check the food database first because so many things I cook are there, if not I add them to the recipe builder and make them public.

    But as a friend pointed out to me recently everyone has different needs and requirements. My body responds better when everyone is eating what I am. My husband eats twice my serving size to meet his calories but it is still stir fry cooked the same as mine.

    Hope that helps. Feel free to message me if you've any questions.

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