I am big on making fresh foods that i bought rather than relying on prepackaged boxes to tell me how many calories I am eating, and as a new calorie counter, that has me really confused.
For example, for lunch I made spaghetti with lean ground turkey. So, I could add up ALL the info on all the packages, but I didn't eat the whole thing! also, I could average it up and divide it, but if I had a half cup of noodles rather than a whole cup, or 3 oz of turkey rather than 1, just because of the spoonful I grabbed, it totally messes up me being able to tell how many calories are in it.
If I know the calorie count of something, I stay on plan really well, if I don't, I just sorta eat how much I'm hungry for, which spells disaster!
I divide my homemade food into portions before I eat it, then I figure out the calories in each portion (divide total calories by number of portions). I also put the portions I'm not eating away before I actually eat my meal, this way I don't eat more.
That makes sense, I should probably start doing that. It just worries me, with things that vary wildly in calories, like a salad. Maybe I should just make my own portions or something. Cause there might be 2 nuts and 1 piece of grated cheese in my portion, or 30 pieces of grated cheese and 15 nuts. That's a big difference calorie wise just because of what happens to have been scooped up with my spoon.
I don't worry too much, if you figure out the total for the whole dish and then divide by however many portions you are having, you may be off a few calories here or there on any given day, but over the course of the few days you are going to eat it, it all balances out.
for something like spaghetti or noodles, I keep the sauce separate so that I can measure out 1/2 cup of the pasta and then add the sauce, but that's more because I don't like to store the pasta with the sauce mixed into if I can help it, I find it gets a bit mushy.
i like to use sparkrecipes.com, its a part of spark people, you put in all the ingredients and how many servings it makes, then it calculates the nutrition facts per serving.
You can use a calculator like this for most recipes, which is what I use when I'm cooking at home (unless it is one of those loving cookbooks that has the nutrition facts ). For things like salads, I portion out how much of everything I want, 2 cups greens, 1 tbsp dressing, 11 nuts, 1/8 cup raisins, 1/4 apple slices or whatever and mix it up for myself so I know EXACTLY what I'm getting. If you want to make a salad for a dinner, just make your own first and mix the big one separately, no one needs to know.
For example, when I make a soup, I add up the total amount of calories for all the ingredients, and then weigh out the total then weigh out into smaller portions.
I divide the total by the smaller amount. So far, so good and I haven't had any issues whatsoever.
I recommended the spark calculator as well! I used nutritiondata for the longest time but their index of foods was very limited and calculating a recipe would take longer than is took to cook the dish LOL.
I understand your frustration. I would say that in the beginning home cooked recipes were the worst for me as well. It really took some time to get used to calculating. I think how you calculate a recipe depends a lot on how many people will be eating the dish. If its just you, that is pretty easy to calculate the entire recipe and divide it into equal portions. If you are cooking for a family, as I do, it can become tricky because the children may eat less than a portion while the adults may eat more.
Lately, when it is possible, I have been calculating one serving of each item in a separate dish and cooking it along side with the dish for the family. That way I know exactly what is in my portion and I always have a slip of paper in the kitchen to record weights and quantities of each ingredient. When I get a moment, I plug my data into the spark calculator or occasionally just enter each ingredient separately into fitday if there are not too many.
Things like chilies and stews can be more tricky but if you carefully weigh or measure each ingredient including added water then enter each item into a calculator, it should give you a pretty accurate weight of one serving so you can just portion it out and weigh your amount.
Here is the link to the spark calculator. You will have to register to use it
I do like the others - figure it all up, then divide by number of servings. Then I keep a running (hard copy) list of all of the family's favorites so it's easy to find next time. So helpful, once your initial time is invested.
I don't worry too much, if you figure out the total for the whole dish and then divide by however many portions you are having, you may be off a few calories here or there on any given day, but over the course of the few days you are going to eat it, it all balances out.
for something like spaghetti or noodles, I keep the sauce separate so that I can measure out 1/2 cup of the pasta and then add the sauce, but that's more because I don't like to store the pasta with the sauce mixed into if I can help it, I find it gets a bit mushy.
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto!
I try not to be too anal. For something SUPER high in calories I will measure or weigh, but if I am off by even 100 calories a day I don't think it's a huge deal.
Generally I use sparkpeople, enter the recipe and go - I ate about a third of it so I divide by 3. I do try and over-estimate a bit. I figure when it's all said and done everything kinda even's itself out. For example, I enter 2 TBSP of sour cream in my spark people and maybe half of it is left on my plate. I just leave it as 2 TBSP in sparkpeople because that is what I accounted for and I probably was off by 30 calories somewhere else. Hope that makes sense.
If I was super anal, I would probably lose more weight. But I am not going the spend the rest of my life measuring to the exact ounce and then spending half my night washing everything I used to measure.
It really depends what I am eating but if I can at all keep the portions separate I do so that I can measure and weigh. I too keep my pasta and sauce separate until I assemble my plate.
If I make something like a casserole I add each individual ingredient in the sparkpeople recipe creator. Then I carefully divide portions.
Sometimes even when I cook for my SO I'll cook my portion of food individually so that I know what I'm getting.
I'm going to chime in and urge you to try the recipe calculator at SparkRecipes.
I enter the ingredients when I first make a dish, and save the recipe. The next time I make it, I simple edit the amounts/ingredient/servings, whatever. I don't care how much DH eats, only me, so if the pot of stew has 10 cups, I would put it in as 10 servings, knowing that the calories are shown per cup. Same with a casserole. I can divide the pan into, say, 8, take my portion, and dh and the kids can have at it with the remainder.
I can't be concerned that *this* ladle of stew has more meat than *that* one. Well, for stuff like that I usually make sure I don't scoop up a bunch of meat. But really, I have to believe it will all even out in the end. Now, for things like your salad, all extras would be added individually (or at least after I had my bowl of greens), so I could measure our MY portion of nuts, dressing, cheese...
how to count homemade foods
). For things like salads, I portion out how much of everything I want, 2 cups greens, 1 tbsp dressing, 11 nuts, 1/8 cup raisins, 1/4 apple slices or whatever and mix it up for myself so I know EXACTLY what I'm getting. If you want to make a salad for a dinner, just make your own first and mix the big one separately, no one needs to know.
