Panigale1199's Journal, 01 December 2017

Best thing I did was buy a food scale. Weigh everything as you put it in the dish and Fat Secret has everything in OZ most of the time. http://www.tanita.com/en/consumer-kitchen-scales/ 

@Bill thanks I will give weighing all the ingredients I put in my recipe a try. Than i figure out portions 

I use grams in measuring everything. I've found success in calculating the whole part of the meal I make as I make it (with practice this has gotten really quick), then I cut it down into portions using my food scale after its done. If I zero out a bowl and dump the whole part in, I have the weight of my meal, I write down what it is and then zero out my bowl/plate/container and put in my percentage that I have decided is a serving in. Here's a sixth, there's a sixth, that is four sixths, and it's just simple math at that point. I keep my phone and a scratch pad close by to calculate as I go. Example: 120g(serving)/600g(total)=0.2servingxCaloric Total(that I calculated while putting the whole thing together)=what I'm eating. If I don't like the numbers I end up with at the end, I reduce the serving size I've decided on. 😅 and at that point of the serving size seems too small do something like cut my serving size and replace it with something with a low caloric density but large volume, like spinach (if reasonable for the meal.) I then still have the numbers handy later. (I always have leftovers that I need that for.) 

@LunethDragon Thanks so much for this. I think at night the meals are more complex because I go cook more fancy at dinner for my brother and BF. So I get a little lazy tracking it all. I noticed I started to get sloppy with tracking and wouldn't put it into fat secret. This could possibly put me 100-200cal over my daily limit which is why my weight has stalled. Thanks for this. I am going to give your suggestion a try. 

Often times my SIL is the one cooking dinner. I ask her what & how much of everything went into it & then plug it into the recipes here which will calculate the nutritional info in a serving for you. 

My calculations on meals aren't all that accurate so I error on the high part. I made a meatloaf a week or two ago that would be 6-8 portions. I weighed the ground beef before cooking and the other ingredients included a can of cream of mushroom soup and about 1/2 cup of oatmeal (to keep it from falling apart). So I just guessed at the serving - 3/4 oz of beef a tablespoon or two of the mushroom soup, a couple tablespoons of oatmeal. There was also an egg in with the mix and I didn't count it - what's 1/7 of an egg anyway. It's so much easier when I make a one portion meal.