I finally gave in and and decided to go back to counting calories, as my weightloss has come to a halt.

Im doing good so far. My husband is deployed and Im just cooking for myself right now so its easy to keep track of everything because Im just cooking one serving at a time.

My question is how do I figure out the calories in a dish when Im cooking for the two of us (he is coming home VERY soon)? Im sure Im just confusing myself. I know how to do it for individual things, but what if I make a "one dish" meal? I dont buy prepackaged meals like hamburger helper. I make everything from "scratch".

So if I make a batch of something how do I figure out how many calories are in each serving? (I rarely use recipes)

I hope Im making sense. I know the answer is probobly easier than Im making it.

Thanks in advance

I plug the recipe, either before or after I made it, into this site: http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php and it will tell you how many calories per serving. You don't have to use 'recipes' persay, but you do have to know how many tablespoons of olive oil you put in, for example. But you'd have to measure that anyway to get the right calorie count even just for you.

If you want easier than that, you just add up the calories of everything you put in the dish, and divide by servings.

As you add ingredients to your meal, make sure you measure according to the package and write down the calories in each ingredient. This way, once you're done cooking, you'll have the total number of calories in the entire recipe.

Then split it up however you'd like: If you only made two serving, divide the total calories in half. If you made 3 servings, divide the total calories by 3, etc.

When I make spaghetti from scratch, I add up the calories in the entire recipe. Then I measure out how many cups are in the pot. If my entire recipe has 1,500 calories and I have 5 cups of spaghetti, that means my servings (1 cup each) are 300 calories each. Remember to write down your favorite meals, so you only have to figure it out once!

I use myplate and create a "meal" with all the ingredients. So a "meal" (say a slow cooker dish) might have 2000 calories for everything but if I'm only eating an eighth of it I record a serving of .125 (just don't forget that decimal point!). The first time you enter everything it takes a couple minutes but after that you can go back and use that same info every time you cook that dish )or have leftovers).

Another helpful thing to do is figure out what your usual cooking utensils hold.

I have a ladle that holds exactly 1 cup. Great when serving chili, soups...etc.

I have a vintage butter cutter, cuts butter in perfect 1/2 T pats.

My soup bowl from my china set holds 2 cups.

I have a serving spoon that at a heaping scoop of food measures out to 1.5 cup of food.

These are just examples. Knowing what my bowls, glassware, utensils hold help with portion control. I would fill objects with water and then pour it into my large measuring cup and wrote it down in a kitchen notebook. What make this great, is that when I serve dinner to guests, I know how much food I am taking without anyone knowing that I am measuring!

sparkrecipes.com, you sign up, plug in all the stuff you make, say the number of servings, and then it calculates it for you

This is nearly identical to how I do it as well

It gets easier over time too. At first it is somewhat daunting but over time it becomes almost like second nature.

Thanks everyone!!!

It makes more sense to me now. But Im still somewhat confused.
Heres an example (all made up calorie counts):
1c pasta 300 calories
4 c spinach 200 calories
2c marinara sauce 400 calories.

So, the entire dish has 900 calories. How would I figure out how many calories are in each 1c serving?

I use measuring cups to measure my servings, so I need to figure out how to figure out how many calories are in each cup.

Im sorry if Im still making this confusing. Im sure the answer is simple and Im just making it hard for myself.

I just reread Danielle's post

So to figure it out I should measure out how many cups are in the entire dish???

Rox, it might be easier on you if you use a kitchen scale. You've made this beautiful dish with carefully measured ingredients. In the example you gave you know there is 900 calories in the entire dish. You then put a nice bowl on your kitchen scale and zero it out. Pour in the pasta and then you know the entire weight of the full batch. Let's say it is 450 grams. Write that number down and then put your plate on the scale and zero it out. Place on your plate your portion and write down that number. Let's say it was 150 grams. Go have a lovely meal with your husband.

Afterward you can do the math.

900 calories / 450 grams = 2 calories per gram.
2 calories/ gram x 150 grams = 300 calories.

My kitchen scale makes measuring food and keeping track so much easier! This would be a much faster method than trying to using measuring cups.

Thank you Renwomin!

Using a scale sounds much easier. I guess I will be getting a kitchen scale tomorrow while Im out

All this math is making me dizzy! Haha.. I learned something new in this post too! So thanks for asking about it SugarRox!

I absolutely love that idea from Renwomin, thanks for sharing!! That is so much easier then pouring it into servings, because I sometimes end up with like 10 tupperwear containers full! Excellent! Thanks again!

I ditto what Renwomin suggest. I use my food scale everyday like this.

The only rant that i have about my food scale is that if i don't put those ingredients on there quickly(i have two small children and can get interupted often) it will zero out and i have to start all over agian. LOL

I use the scale the same way, but I actually am using a postal scale because that's what I had. It's digital and it will weigh ounces or grams...not that I ever need grams except that some recipes I get online for free are in grams and it's a lot of work to do the conversion from ounces. Im not sure if a postal scale is any cheaper, like I said, I have mine anyhow.

Barb