OK, now I know that it IS worth it... but I'm wondering if there are any tricks to doing it easier. Like, a casserole I can divide into servings after having added up the total. But what if it has a lot of juice and it all sloshes around. Or a big thing of stew or something. There's some things I just don't make when I know I'm trying to keep track of my calories, and it would be nice to be able to have soup, but still let the rest of the family eat whatever serving they want of it. Or a pot of spaghetti?? Sheesh

Hopefully some professionals have ideas.

I count the calories for the whole meal I'm making, then multiply it by the fraction I'm eating. Pasta, however, is tough. I measure my own single serving and make in a separate pot.

Get a scale - your life will be so much easier. Make the soup - weigh the whole thing and then you can just weigh out however much you want.
Counting calories is a lot easier then being fat

Figure the amount of calories in the entire pot and divide by number of servings to get calories per serving, if it is something you make often save the information for the future, that way you only figure iy out once,

Food scales are my best friend for this. I weigh out my ingredients when I'm cooking so I can get the total number of calories for the whole recipe. Then, if it's a soup, I cook it and then when it's done, I put the container I'm going to store the food in on the food scale, zero it out, and pour in the soup. The weight I now get is the weight of JUST the food... so I divide that number by the number of servings, and that weight is how much I portion into my bowl. If it's a casserole, you can weigh the baking dish beforehand and subtract that weight from the final weight and again, you'll be left with the weight of the food only.

LOL I don't eat casseroles and the like for that reason.

I usually eat a piece of lean protein, some rice or potatoes, and a pile of veggies. That way I can weigh each seperate thing and be done with it .

I think getting all picky over the juice at the bottom of the pan or stuff like that is what drives people away from the idea of calorie counting. I don't get that picky with it. I just add all the ingredients together, divide by the number of servings and go with that number. The juice in the bottom of the pan isn't really going to count for THAT much of a difference.

When I make soup I generally measure it out with a cup measure, or pour the whole contents into my biggest measuring cup and then divide by 1.5 cup servings. Or something like that.

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