Calorie counting

[MinnieTruck]

Posting here for traffic.

Am I just stupid or do other people not understand how to calorie count? I understand scanning a barcode of something you’ve eaten in order to track your calories, that makes a lot of sense. However, how do you calorie count for home cooked meals?

If you use half a jar of sauce, do you scan the sauce and say how much measurements you’ve used? I have no measuring tools and I’m shit at estimating anyway! Do you have to weigh some items to figure out how much you’ve used?

I’ve just started my fitness journey after a long time of being inconsistent and I’d like to track what I eat but I don’t understand how to flipping do it😅 pls help:)

I do a mix of:

• weighing things
• measuring quantities eg in cups or mls

With recipes i make regularly I've worked out the total calories from all the ingredients, measured the total volume (eg of bolognese sauce) the recipe makes then i measure the sauce i eat.

E.g. say it makes 500ml of sauce and its 1500 calories in total, if i eat 100ml of the sauce thats 300 cals.

Ive got these types of numbers already calculated for the 10 or so meals i make most often, and also the process of doing it has made me rather more accurate in estimating for others.

I think the issue here is that I don’t even understand how to calculate the calories in the first place! Again, maths isn’t my strong point and I’m getting confused just reading the comments on here haha.

I’m joining WW and will see how I get on with that

You do need to get your scales out and measure for each meal. it won't work otherwise. If you do WW or SW then you still need to weigh everything. It will just translate to points instead.

And to calculate carlories, either us the packet which will tell you per 100g and you can work it our from there. Or use My Fitness Pal search for the food item, add in the weight and it will tell you.

You just weight it and put it in an app. It is not like decades ago when we had printed sheets and calculators.

If you are using an app like My fitness pal you don't need to work out the calories yourself that's the point, you scan the barcode or search e.g. 'borne onion' and for the vast majority of ingredients/products it brings up the calorie information. You then enter how much of the product you have used (by weighing it out using scales) and the app works out how many calories are in the bit you have used. As PP's have said the recipe feature is handy as you put in all your total measurements then a serving size and it works out the calories per portion.

When you look at the nutritional info label on food do you understand what you are looking at?

Right!!! I don’t know why reading your comment made it clearer for me but it did😂 so the calories that the item is per 100g will be on the packet. I’ll just enter how many grams the scales tells me I’m using. Ah okay I understand.

I’ll download MyFitnessPal and have a look into it. I may have to play around to fully understand it but your comment made sense to me. Thank you!

@WhatCameFirstTheChickenOrTheDickhead

When you look at the nutritional info label on food do you understand what you are looking at?

Clearly not! I need to have a look at one now and see if I understand what the heck is going on

@MinnieTruck glad I could help. MFP has so many foods in it already, it is unlikely that you will have to add anything as new. It is really easy to use.

Just be mindful that some scans on MFP might not be correct. Like veg showing as salami and vice versa, so always check the name after scanning

Yes, to My Fitness Pal - I am terrible at maths, there's no way I'd be able to calorie count with it.

So for spaghetti bolognaise, I'd put into MFP that I'd had 60g of whatever pasta, 50g of tomatoes, 2 tbsp of onion, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and it will tell me how many calories that is.

Amazing thank you. That makes a lot of sense to me. I’m off to buy some scales after work tomorrow then. Any good ones out there that you peeps recommend or is it all fairly standard?

If you go on my fitness pal there's a 'my recipes ' section. So if I was making a bolognaise sauce I'd weigh the onion, peppers, mince, add the passata in grams, add how many teaspoons of herbs, garlic etc and then divide it by how many portions it makes. Then each time I had that meal again it would be saved so just add it to my meal plan. So it's time consuming the first time you have a homemade meal but not after that.

Ok so have a look at something and you will see it gives the calorie information 'per serving size' and 'per 100g'.

The serving size could be something random like '13 smarties' or more specific like '30g cereal'. The easiest way to use the information is to look at what the calories are for 100g then weigh out how many grams you use, so if you were having 25g of smarties it would be the calories 'per 100g' x 0.25.

As I said though something like MFP works all this out for you though, you scan the product, check the calorie information to the label and then put in your serving size (either as a decimal of 100 e.g. 0.25 for 25g or change the serving size to 1g and out the amount as 25).

It sounds complicated but you soon pick it up!

YouTube has obstructions on how to do it. You make the full meal up and then calculate your portions from the weight.

I would read The Diet Myth by Tim spector. He explains brilliantly why counting calories is very inaccurate and most people give it up and pile the weight back on and more because its unsustainable, inaccurate and boring. Fast Feast Repeat by Gin stephens is a life changing book. Intermittant fasting as a lifestyle has helped me lose weight and I have so much energy and sleep better too. But its my for ever lifestyle now.