I get most of my recipes from websites. I just print them out and most them time they don't include any type of nutrition info. I have no idea how to put this in on my calorie counting website. I don't want to sit there and put in each individual item, plus I really don't know for sure how much I am eating of each item. How do you get around this? It makes me want to give up calorie counting all together. I like the idea of it, but the only time I was successful at it was when I was eating lean cusine's twice a day and knew exactly how much I was eating.
I get most of my recipes from websites. I just print them out and most them time they don't include any type of nutrition info. I have no idea how to put this in on my calorie counting website. I don't want to sit there and put in each individual item, plus I really don't know for sure how much I am eating of each item. How do you get around this? It makes me want to give up calorie counting all together. I like the idea of it, but the only time I was successful at it was when I was eating lean cusine's twice a day and knew exactly how much I was eating.
Unfortunately there is not really an easy way around it. You're right that it is easier to eat pre-packaged products that have the nutritional info right there. But this isn't always the "healthiest" or "tastiest" choice, we know this, and therein lies the dilemma.
My method, while tedious, is to sit down and add up the calories in the entire dish (if the dish has multiple items, you know). Then I divide it by how much servings are in it and make sure to take exactly that much. Case in point: the other night I made a veggie pizza from scratch and added all the ingredients' calories together and divided by 8 so I knew how much each slice was.
It takes up time, and it can get annoying, but from now on when I make that dish I know how many calories it has (by writing it down) and that is at least a little bit comforting for my meticulous calorie counting self
It's a pain, but I use sparkpeople's recipe calculator. You can enter the whole recipe and then divide it into however many servings you want and it will give you the calorie count. Then, I save the entire thing as one item in my custom foods on Fitday (for example, I entered it for a salad I was making today and saved it in Fitday as Strawberry Poppyseed Salad with the total 1 servings worth of calories).
I use the recipe tracker on loseit and then just portion it equally and tell it how many portions and it does the math for me. Then I have a database of recipes I use often and it takes no time at all.
I have an app on my Iphone called "Lose It!" It has calorie counts for tons of things, and you can build a recipe and calculate that way. Then once you've done it once, it stays in the program and is part of your like... calorie dictionary. So you never have to do it again. And the app was free. Best zero dollars I've ever spent.
Bargoo: I've been spending too much time on Facebook; I read your post and immediately looked for the "Like" button. I completely agree with you.
PinkHoodie: It IS a pain to do all that, true. But, if you're consistently making the same recipes over and over, you only have to do it once. And if calorie counting is working for you, then isn't it worth the extra work to have a sustainable way to live and eat?
This is the site I use: http://www.recipenutrition.com/RWplacement.aspx, sounds similar to the other ones posted. You have to sit and input everything, but I think it's better than guesstimating incorrectly. Usually it doesn't take real long for me to input it. I may try some of the other sites and see if they are better than this one, but I thought I would share mine to and you can decide for yourself! Good luck!
I also get most of my recipes online, but I prefer the sites that do give nutritional information.
allrecipes.com is one of my favorites. Or I'll just search in the google site and use calorie or exchanges in my search words (in addition to the recipe name or ingredients).
For example, if I'm looking for a meatloaf recipe, I'll type "meatloaf calories" or "meatloaf exchanges" in the google search box.
When I find a recipe site that includes nutritional information I add it to my favorites. There are so many websites that do the nutritional analysis for you, that you don't have to choose between 30 minutes of math and processed foods like Lean Cuisines. There are other options.
I collect cookbooks that have nutritional information (especially exchange information, since I prefer calorie counting through an exchange plan).
The math gets easier, the more often you do it, and you learn ways to estimate calories even when you don't have access to the labels.
Dining Lean and Exchanges for All Occasions are both books that give great estimation information. Even though they're both exchange plan books, the information is pertinent to straight calorie counters too (especially since exchanges can be easily translated into straight calories, because all of the foods in each exchange have very similar calorie counts).
For example, I believe it's in the book, Dining Lean that there's a calorie estimation chapter that lists common foods and how to estimate the calories (and the exchanges) for each.
For example almost all breads are about 80 calories per ounce - unless they're sweeter and/or fattier than usual. If the bread leaves a translucent stain on a napkin or piece of paper (such as a danish or croissant would do) the calories are closer to 150 calories per ounce.
Meatloaf is generally about 80 calories per ounce.
Also, the more often you do the math, the better you get at estimating.
As for not knowing how much you eat, there really is no way around that. You do have to measure what you're eating in some way (even if it's the "plate" method of filling half your plate with veggies, 1/4 the plate with protein, and 1/3 with starch).
Non-chain restaurants, that don't have nutrition info readily available, are also a pain. I went out tonight and had a bowl artichoke crab soup at a local Italian place--and yes, it was delicious--but I have no idea how much butter/oil/stock/crab/artichoke/etc. went into making it that way.
From my tastebuds, I feel pretty sure it had about 40% of my daily sodium, though--mmm, salty.
And THIS is what has taken the charm away from having other people kick my food. Counting calories, man. Every day there's something I can't account for, one way or another, on fitday. I'd ten times rather enter all the ingredients of a dish in, and then divide it out by portion to know what I'm eating, then to not have a freaking clue.
you have to remember a lot of recipe will vary too... like on all recipes.com.. that is the calorie count that that person has come up with using their brands, and dividing it by how many servings they want out of it..
you can have 10 different brands of the exact type of food example I've seen "light sour cream" labeled anything from 20-50 cals if I use one brand of light sour cream in my recipe then the person who originally made it did the calorie count will be off.
the way I do is to go by the labels on each individual ingredient i'm adding in unless it's fresh produce or meat, then it obviously wont have a nutrition label on it. for those things i do look up on livestrong.com then I get a total for the entire recipe and just divide by how many servings I will actually get out of it.. I like bigger portions so something like a casserole or chili that some one might get 6-8 servings out of I might get 4-5 but i do make sure I have an accurate calorie count for the entire dish and that i do divvy the portions equally if I make casserole I always cut it into 4 equal squares, or if I make chili I take ladle and divide them up into 4-5 tupper ware containers equally just do whats easiest for you. plus once you tackle the calorie counts on things you make regularly as long as you make them the exact same way with same ingredients you can save it and only have to add it all up once- II sued to make it alto harder on myself some times I'd be adding in things that were 0-5 calories like spices and then it would hit me that I was doing more work then necessary..lol those things i am not as compulsive about adding in
Last edited by mariamherrera; 08-21-2010 at 02:50 AM.
For example almost all breads are about 80 calories per ounce - unless they're sweeter and/or fattier than usual. If the bread leaves a translucent stain (such as a danish or croissant would do) the calories are closer to 150 calories per ounce.
Ooh! This is very handy for me this month, as I'm working in Greece at the moment and haven't been able to get a good estimate for the local spinach/cheese pies by WEIGHT. (The calorie counters that do have "phyllo" or "spanakopita" listed usually have something stupid like "one piece", when they come in lots and lots of different sizes and shapes.) I'm gonna put "1 oz pastry = 150 cal" into my LoseIt. Actually maybe I'll the calories of one more tsp oil, to judge from the local pastries.
I do a mix between the careful calculation and estimates, depending on the occasion. LIke kaplods says, it gets easier after you have lots of practice weighing things on scales or using measuring cups, and know about what size 3 oz of bread or poultry is, 1 tsp of oil, 100gr of potato.
I use the Sparkpeople recipe calculator or LoseIt entry when it's a recipe I make a lot, but if it's something I'm just putting together from what I happen to have in the refrigerator like a soup or casserole, I take the portion size of what I actually ate, and add up the two or three most calorific things that would be in the equivalent portion -- usually the meat, fat or starch. So if I had one cup of a pasta sauce that I made with chicken breast pieces, chickpeas, onions, canned crushed tomato (not tomato sauce which has different calories), some olive oil, and vegetables, I add up the calories for 3 oz chicken (eyeballing, because I'm practiced at weighing out chicken breast portions), 1/2 c chickpeas, 1 TSP oil, and then add 50 cal for the rest. I'm not that critical in counting non-starchy vegetables.
For greasy street food, which I don't eat that much, but I need SOME kind of calorie place holder for, I put in the volume equivalent of some reasonably similar American fast food. Up until this point I've been figuring calories for spinach cheese pies by entering them as slices of Papa Murphy cheese pizza, or kotopoulo pitas (a chicken gyro, which to say chicken with yogurt and vegetables in a pita) as 1 1/2 McChickens into my LoseIt app.
Last edited by bronzeager; 08-21-2010 at 04:36 AM.
I'm with you on the frustration!! My biggest pet peeve is finding a website that totes themselves as "healthy" or "low calorie" and they STILL don't give the nutritional value!! I guess I should just take their word for it! Anyhoo...my best friend is my notebook, with trusty sidekick calculator, always waiting on the counter by my scale. My cheat sheet for "all ready figured out recipes" is well worn. When I'm agonizing over whether or not I can afford that uber necessary 25 calorie caramel kiss meltaway, I must know, for certain, the calorie makeup of every recipe. So I hate putting faith in someone elses guesstimation. As my "figured out" page gets fuller, this will get easier.... Reeeally diggin that Hungry Girl website!
What I hate about calorie counting
I completely agree with you. 
Anyhoo...my best friend is my notebook, with trusty sidekick calculator, always waiting on the counter by my scale. My cheat sheet for "all ready figured out recipes" is well worn. When I'm agonizing over whether or not I can afford that uber necessary 25 calorie caramel kiss meltaway, I must know, for certain, the calorie makeup of every recipe. So I hate putting faith in someone elses guesstimation. As my "figured out" page gets fuller, this will get easier.... 
Reeeally diggin that Hungry Girl website!
