Calories in homemade food?

crux

Counting calories is the only way you will know what portion size you should be eating. But calculating it is a pain, there is a web site I have used I will try to find the link at lunch time, you basically entre the ingredients, and it spits out the calories, but... you still will have to weigh some of the ingredients you use.

The very best way IMO, is to forward plan meals, get together a folder of meal options over time, you will find that you will make a dozen or so of them 80% of the time. Figure out the calories in those regular staple meals and you more than half way there.

Just finding out how much you 'should' have eaten in a portion could be an eye opener!

The one other thing to say is this; ( and if you already have this part figured then please forgive me for even say it! )
Whole grain stuff, veggies, fresh cooked produce etc, it fills you for both less calories and for longer time periods than processed foods do.

What you eat can be as important as how much you eat. I eat 5-6 meals a day, but in total they add up to 2500 calories or less, I have to eat full fat cheese and use olive oils etc just to get enough calories in the day.

But if I ate a shop pizza for example, I would have eaten half my calories for the day in 15 mins and be hungry again in 2 hours.

crux

One tip for calorie controlled meals.

I know it uses a lot of expensive, fancy ingredients, but.. BBC good food web site, has a really ace search feature. You can search by Calorie range, and nearly every recipe is nutritionally calculated.

You may find some good idea there for meals that are home made, healthy and lowish in calories.

EmptyPockets

Some very good information there Crux, thank you. As you say, most of the meals we eat, are regular meals, I'd guess that I make things on a 3/4 week rotation, so sitting and working out the calorie count for these meals would only have to be done the once, then I have it to hand each time after. I'll keep checking back to see if you managed to find that link

EmptyPockets

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Do you mind if I edit your previous post:



Sorted

Haha Yes, I think that's about right, unfortunately!

tessie_bear

u can get a book i think its called manual of nutrition....it used to have a green colour and it tells u how many cals etc 100g of food has in it....if u googled it u might be able to find an online calculator but its a fath...easier with dishes that have fewer ingreds

[Deleted User]

This site http://www.allaboutyou.com/ has calorie counted recipes. You need to use the advanced search and just look for Good Housekeeping recipes as they list calories per serving.

I have the Manual of Nutrition (strict vegetarian so needed to be careful feeding my children). I don't think it is still printed.

I have found you can cut out a lot of the fat in recipes. I always make my own bread and you do not need to use lard or butter if the loaf is not to be kept. When I make pizzas I do not brush the dough with olive oil. Soup vegetables are not browned first. Bake potatoes I eat with cottage cheese or beans and no butter (very hard!).

greenbee

I use the Healthy Diet Calorie Counter by Kirsten Hartvig to calculate the calories in ingredients and therefore in recipes. I have a spreadsheet set up so that I just input the weight of the ingredient, calories per 100g or whatever and number of portions I'm making. That way it works it out form me. Having said that, I'm currently using fitbug, so the nutrition section of the site does it all for me

crux

EmptyPockets wrote: »

I'll keep checking back to see if you managed to find that link

Found it

but i can't post a live link so I'll just write it out, add http to the address below in your browser or google recipes.sparkpeople.com



/recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp

cooking-mama

most diet clubs advise on making homemade meals anyway...the only way to do it is to weigh everything.or follow recipes that are calorie counted,then if the recipe is for 4..divide by 4 to get the calorie count for your portion etc.
check out slimming world website,they have loads of recipes,very little weighing but their plan is complicated so you may have to join a club.
Another option is to increase your excercise..at the end of the day,weightloss is simply down to calories in V calories out...good luck

rainbowfairydust

does anyone know how many calories are in a home made fishcake? There is just potato/fish & seasoning in the cake with a thing layer of breadcrumbs ..