I sometimes dont get this whole healthy thing

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venetianz
venetianz Posts: 78 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Last night i had chicken ala king. i bought the source which the amount i used was 100cals, used 2 tbsp of oil which is about 500, 1 breast fillet, and some veggies. besides the oil it looked like a very healthy meal, i shared all these with 2 more people, then how come MFP calorie count say i ate about 500 calories? Do i have to devide the total amount of that meal in 3 to get the exact amount of calories i ate? im trying to not eat more than 400 calories per meal
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  • joanneeee
    joanneeee Posts: 311 Member
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    i don't understand what you just said. if you're going to split a meal in three you would also split the calories in three.
    O__O also 2 tbsp oil =/= 500 calories.
  • kiwi1855
    kiwi1855 Posts: 218 Member
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    joanneee - I think you are confusing tsp (teaspoons) and tbsp (tablespoons). 2 tsp (teaspoons) of standard vegetable/canola/really anything oil is about 120 cals, and 2 tbsp (tablespoons) is roughly 6 tsp, making 2tbsps of oil actually more like 720cal.

    venetianz - if you are making a meal, and sharing it, put everything in, and then, yes, set the number of people the meal will feed to be the appropriate number of servings. The calorie count in your recipe right now is probably correct based on the amount of oil that you were using.
  • daffodilsoup
    daffodilsoup Posts: 1,972 Member
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    joanneee - I think you are confusing tsp (teaspoons) and tbsp (tablespoons). 2 tsp (teaspoons) of standard vegetable/canola/really anything oil is about 120 cals, and 2 tbsp (tablespoons) is roughly 6 tsp, making 2tbsps of oil actually more like 720cal.

    Don't think so - MFP rules generic straight up oil at 124 calories per tablespoon. The two are pretty easy to mix up, but 720 cals for 2 tablespoons of oil is way high. :flowerforyou:
  • Nicolee_2014
    Nicolee_2014 Posts: 1,572 Member
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    Yeah 720cals sounds like an awful lot for 2 tbs of oil, sheesh!
  • Nicolee_2014
    Nicolee_2014 Posts: 1,572 Member
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    How big is the chicken breast? If it was 8.8ounces that would be about 415 calories on it's own. Did you divide the chicken breast between you all or did you have a chicken breast each? If you had just the chicken on it's own it would nearly be close to the 500 calorie mark. So I guess it depends on what the serving size of the chicken was.
  • joanneeee
    joanneeee Posts: 311 Member
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    kiwi185 -
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    tumblr_ltawua28lI1qhc7h5.gif

    no i am not confusing tablespoons with teaspoons. whether it is 2 tbsp or 2 tsp of oil neither should be 500 calories.

    tumblr_lrtebfxeQn1qdkedzo4_250.gif
  • kiwi1855
    kiwi1855 Posts: 218 Member
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    hmm... if I am mistaken, I most certainly apologize, however on the label of my vegetable oil it states 2 tsp = 120 cals. I dunno for sure though, I'm not at home.

    edit: I found the entry that I use as it matches my oil at home.

    L3jSr.jpg

    Edit 2: rereading OP's entry, it is impossible to tell what oil she was using, as she does not specify. Using a conversion tool, I get that 2tbsps is roughly equivalent to 6tsps.

    Edit 3: and I completely accept that my math was a bit off.
  • aNEWmarcus
    aNEWmarcus Posts: 48
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    Last night i had chicken ala king. i bought the source which the amount i used was 100cals, used 2 tbsp of oil which is about 500, 1 breast fillet, and some veggies. besides the oil it looked like a very healthy meal, i shared all these with 2 more people, then how come MFP calorie count say i ate about 500 calories? Do i have to devide the total amount of that meal in 3 to get the exact amount of calories i ate? im trying to not eat more than 400 calories per meal

    I would suggest to create this in MFP as a Recipe - this then enables you to also say how many servings you are doing this for - ie 3 people. As you ate 1 serving, MFP would calculate this for you based on the figures.

    Also an idea for oil is to find a low calorie spray oil. We have it in the UK and it's great as it's only 1calorie per spray..
  • timingsands
    timingsands Posts: 83
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    joanneee - I think you are confusing tsp (teaspoons) and tbsp (tablespoons). 2 tsp (teaspoons) of standard vegetable/canola/really anything oil is about 120 cals, and 2 tbsp (tablespoons) is roughly 6 tsp, making 2tbsps of oil actually more like 720cal.

    Where did you get this information? Rule of thumb is that oil is about 120 calories per tablespoon.

    I can see why some people would be afraid to use oil in their cooking if they believe misinformation like this.
  • joanneeee
    joanneeee Posts: 311 Member
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    hmm... if I am mistaken, I most certainly apologize, however on the label of my vegetable oil it states 2 tsp = 120 cals. I dunno for sure though, I'm not at home.

    edit: I found the entry that I use as it matches my oil at home.

    L3jSr.jpg

    Edit 2: rereading OP's entry, it is impossible to tell what oil she was using, as she does not specify. Using a conversion tool, I get that 2tbsps is roughly equivalent to 6tsps.

    Edit 3: and I completely accept that my math was a bit off.

    i'm not sure if you're serious. 6 x 2 teaspoons = 12 teaspoons of oil = 480 (correct)
    12 tsp = 480
    6 tsp = 240
    2 tbsp = 240
    2 tbsp = 6 tsps = 240
    using your own label, 2 tbsp oil = 240. your label is correct. your math is wrong. your label states 2 tsp = 80 not 120.
    2 tsp =/= 120
    2 tbsp =/= 720
  • cobblers88
    cobblers88 Posts: 41
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    A tablespoon is THREE teaspoons.
  • bexxw
    bexxw Posts: 44 Member
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    A tablespoon is THREE teaspoons.

    I was just gonna post that :)
  • kiwi1855
    kiwi1855 Posts: 218 Member
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    Yeah... apparently I'm a scatterbrained idiot that can't do math tonight. My apologies, and I withdraw all comments up to this point. A thousand apologies oh patient ones.
  • sumnerfan
    sumnerfan Posts: 244 Member
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    hmm... if I am mistaken, I most certainly apologize, however on the label of my vegetable oil it states 2 tsp = 120 cals. I dunno for sure though, I'm not at home.

    edit: I found the entry that I use as it matches my oil at home.

    L3jSr.jpg

    Edit 2: rereading OP's entry, it is impossible to tell what oil she was using, as she does not specify. Using a conversion tool, I get that 2tbsps is roughly equivalent to 6tsps.

    Edit 3: and I completely accept that my math was a bit off.

    You have actually calculated 12 tsp of oil there. 6 x 2 tsp serving size. That may be the problem. HTH.
  • Missjulesdid
    Missjulesdid Posts: 1,444 Member
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    Last night i had chicken ala king. i bought the source which the amount i used was 100cals, used 2 tbsp of oil which is about 500, 1 breast fillet, and some veggies. besides the oil it looked like a very healthy meal, i shared all these with 2 more people, then how come MFP calorie count say i ate about 500 calories? Do i have to devide the total amount of that meal in 3 to get the exact amount of calories i ate? im trying to not eat more than 400 calories per meal

    100 calories from sauce
    240 calories from oil
    250 calories for 8 ounce breast (I have no idea how large your breast was so I'm going to just guess 8 ounces)
    160 vegetable (cuz if you're like me you steamed up an entire one pound bag of frozen veggies ;-)

    Total calories for the recipe is 750
    if you ate EXACTLY 1/3 of the recipe you would be getting 250 calories

    I'm not sure about the chicken breast though... Did you each eat your own piece and how many ounces was it?

    When logging your calories you have two choices.. If this is something you will eat again, you can create a recipe and then just tell MFP how many servings in the recipe and tell MFP that you ate 1 serving

    If this is something that you're not going to eat again then log everything in separately but calculate it at only 1/3 of the total that you used. So if you are logging your chicken you'd find a one ounce portion and then record that you ate 2.67 quantity of a one ounce chicken breast because 2.67 is 1/3 of 8.

    The first week of logging is tough and time consuming but it gets easy after a while, especially once you get your favorite recipes set up.
  • twinmom01
    twinmom01 Posts: 854 Member
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    Last night i had chicken ala king. i bought the source which the amount i used was 100cals, used 2 tbsp of oil which is about 500, 1 breast fillet, and some veggies. besides the oil it looked like a very healthy meal, i shared all these with 2 more people, then how come MFP calorie count say i ate about 500 calories? Do i have to devide the total amount of that meal in 3 to get the exact amount of calories i ate? im trying to not eat more than 400 calories per meal

    Note - not all oil is bad for you - use a good quality Olive Oil and your body will thank you for it...your body needs the good fats found in some oils
  • MzMiller1215
    MzMiller1215 Posts: 633 Member
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    I ALWAYS use zero calories cooking spray whenever possible! And I agree with others on here about creating a recipe on MFP. I do that with anything I homecook. It also helps to know the exact amount of servings each recipe will provide.
  • Erdfisch
    Erdfisch Posts: 13 Member
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    To add my two cents to the ongoing "t(b)sp-spoon-discussion": I can only strongly encourage everyone to get and use a food-scale. I found out that the TABLEspoons I'm using in my kitchen only hold about 7 grams of oil, which is about half the weight given by the label on the bottle and the estimations used in MFP. On the other hand I can easily load 7 or 8 grams of sugar on a TEAspoon if I want to, this time doubling some of the estimates you hear floating around.

    When counting calories it helps a lot to actually incorporate the <actual> number of calories and nutrients eaten, and measures like cup, spoon, serving, piece sometimes confuse rather than help, especially in the beginning. After about two months of weighing most of my food (at least the food I prepare at home) I already got a lot better in estimating.

    So if try weighing the next time you prepare chicken you will see it will come a lot closer to your perceptions. On a side note, I wouldn't say 500 calories for a meal is too much. And the point of eating <healthy> food is that they provide you with a lot more of the stuff your body needs to function properly than, say, a greasy burger or 500 cals of ice cream, and do a better job of making and keeping you feel full.
  • Missjulesdid
    Missjulesdid Posts: 1,444 Member
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    To add my two cents to the ongoing "t(b)sp-spoon-discussion": I can only strongly encourage everyone to get and use a food-scale. I found out that the TABLEspoons I'm using in my kitchen only hold about 7 grams of oil, which is about half the weight given by the label on the bottle and the estimations used in MFP. On the other hand I can easily load 7 or 8 grams of sugar on a TEAspoon if I want to, this time doubling some of the estimates you hear floating around.

    When counting calories it helps a lot to actually incorporate the <actual> number of calories and nutrients eaten, and measures like cup, spoon, serving, piece sometimes confuse rather than help, especially in the beginning. After about two months of weighing most of my food (at least the food I prepare at home) I already got a lot better in estimating.

    Are you using actual measuring spoons or are you using the cutlery that you use for eating? While the "teaspoons" and "tablespoons" that you use for eating can have a huge variation in size, the MEASURING spoons are uniform in size. I absolutely agree that a food scale is important, but if you're properly using your measuring spoons and not just using the spoons you use for eating, you don't need to weigh your sugar or oil.
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
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    Crisco!! Do people actually still use that kind of stuff! Seriously - I'm not going to get into all the math of this. USE OLIVE OIL, much healthier! Eat a sensible portion and move on!

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