Calorie confusion!

In my previous post I said I would give slimming world another few weeks and if it still doesn't seem to work for me I would try the 12 week NHS plan. So, in preparation and out of interest I thought it'd be good to see how many calories I currently consume on slimming world.

So today I have made risotto. Working out the calories for the rice, the veg and the stock is all fine. But I don't eat the whole thing. It gets portioned out between me and my partner and then whatever is left I keep for lunch tomorrow.

Am I meant to weigh the whole thing before serving it and then work out what percentage of it I'm having so that I know how many of the total syns I've had? Because that feels insanely difficult. Or is there an easier way? Am I being stupid?

It's fine with things that are separate. Knowing how many calories are in a piece of chicken and mash is easy and there's none left over. But how do people work it out when you've only had part of something? Help please!

[VickyDLM 2 stone]

Hi Kinbun,

I found this difficult to work out at first too!

I work out the total amount of calories in a dish, then divide it by how many (equal) portions I've divided it into. So I'd work out the total amount of calories in the whole risotto, then divide it by 3 (one for you, one for your other half, and one for the saved portion). Like I said, this relies on you dividing it up into relatively equal portions. I generally just eyeball it, rather than weighing out each portion.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

[Garfield_123 Restart Sept 2023]

I do the same as VickyDLM . You just need to work out the calories of the ingredients you are putting in. The weight of the finished/cooked dish shouldn't matter (unless you want to work out portion sizes as a percentage which seems overly complicated!)

[DartmoorDumpling Restart Feb 2024]

I used the Nutracheck online calorie counter which allows you to input whole recipes and calculates a portion for you...it does all the hard work and I found it most helpful particularly at the beginning. It is free the first week and then £7.99 a month, but in my case, well worth every penny! You can alternatively use Myfitnesspal calorie counter which is free... but I don't know if that has the same facility regarding saving recipes and calculating portions.

[Caz28]

My fitness pal allows you to put your own recipes in or even download one off the internet, they are then saved so you only have to work them out once. I go on how many portions mostly, but sometimes weigh the whole thing and then my portion as a percentage.

[Hidden]

Hi, I think you need to work out the calories in the dish as a whole, and then dvivide into the number of portions you have served out. It's rather a dull and laborious process, but at least you only have to do it once for each meals, and once you;ve got a repertoire of risotto, curry, stew, roast etc, then the job is done as long as you stick to those particular recipes.

[Hidden]

Thanks for all your advice everyone. It's good to know I wasn't missing some sort of secret method! I will just take it a step at a time and try to build a database of calories for meals we would normally make from scratch