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!
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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.
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
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