Tracking Calories 😬

[PetronellaPiper]

I been on Mounjaro since January and my weight loss has been slow but I’m okay with that. However, it’s started to plateau badly, and I need to bite the bullet and track calories, which I hate doing! I’ve never got along with MyFitnesspal so I’ve downloaded the Nutracheck calorie counter app. But I get a lot of recipes from Instagram and when they don’t give calorie content I don’t really know where to start - any tips for how to do that without going through each ingredient’s calorie count etc?

For example, i’ve made this but no idea how to count the calories in it: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA6IVTZJBdR/?igsh=OGtybm45aDQ0Z2E=

The only way to do it accurately is to go through and do each ingredient. Once you’ve done it for that recipe then you won’t need to do it again, so it’s a pain to do initially but then it’s done and reusable.

I suppose you could run the recipe through an AI chat bot and see what it reckons the calories are, but in order to trust it you’d have to check it carefully so not sure it would actually save any time.

MFP allows you to create the recipe, so you will need to weigh everything when you do first time, then perhaps say you had 1/2 the recipe as a portion. I expect nutracheck has similar functionality.

Good point, I guess it’s only once for each recipe. I just find it a bit painful! But I think I’ll make this quite a lot so it’ll be worth it.

Oh wow I didn’t know this. Will look it up. Thanks!

Yes, certainly in MFP you can create a recipe and add all the ingredients to it. You say how many portions it is and then it’s saved ready for you to use again.

MyNetDiary is good. It's very easy to add custom recipes and it now has a built in AI to make things even easier.

there are several apps that estimate calories based on a photo, Foodvisor and there was some kind of a Raccoon app as well. I've trid the Foodvisor one and while it occasionally claims my black bread is chocolate cake, mostly it does a very decent job. Just tried and it recognized that I was eating a halloumi cucumber mango salad and also got the quantities right.

You can also scan barcodes which makes it easier. I scan an ingredient and then change the volume that I'm adding to the recipe or per meal.

Thanks @SilenceInsidewhere can I find that option in the app? I find it a really hard to app to navigate for some reason

I use nutracheck app as well, it remembers what you’ve put in and you can scan barcodes once you get used to it it’s not ok times consuming. You will be amazed how the calories add up.

In NutraCheck you use My Meals on the bottom and then you can save recipes, just put the ingredients in as you go and how many portions you’re making. You can both save them and edit them, so for example when I’d used all the portions of a pasta sauce I’d done with beef and made it again with pork mince I just edited the recipe as everything else was the same.

This is available in Nutracheck too, on the My Meals tab

If you're doing it right, no matter what site you use you have to be scrupulous, almost forensic about it because 'portion size' means nothing, the counts on packets are often not what you're eating, brands differ considerably, just try to work out the amount of a particular coconut milk they are all completely different, you have weigh and measure everything, dont rely on waht is already in the system or on the packet.

I have tons of recipes on MFP and then you have to work out how much of the portion you had for that recipe, its a faff putting it all in.

Things I hate to calculate are tinned fish, fresh fish particularly salmon, raw meats, rice/cooked rice/lentils/cooked lentils, there are so many different calculations for them online. I never use the information on the calorie counting apps either because most of them are put in by the public and are unbelievably wrong.

@PetronellaPiper in the MFP iOS app, you click on More ….. option bottom right, then scroll down the list to “My Meals, Recipes & Foods”, click on that and then on the next screen down the bottom there’s a blue bar “Create a Recipe” and then you can either import one from a website or enter the ingredients manually. They don’t make it easy! But you only have to do it once.

I use Nutracheck. Just put all the ingredients in and save it as a meal.

Same here. It’s such an easy app to use.