I don't know how many calories Im getting

[WhiteGorilla]

It's really hard for me to tell how many total calories I am eating because of dinner. I know how many Im eating the whole day until dinner time when my mom cooks. (Im 16) I can estimate if Im getting closer to 250 calories or 1000 calories, but I never know if Im getting 2500 calories or 3500 calories. I eat a lot at dinner, about twice as much as everyone else in my family, and its usually a high calorie dinner with a lot of carbs, protein, and some vegies. Even if I look at the packaging on the food she cooks, I only know the nutrition facts for a set amount of servings, and I have no idea how many servings I eat.

Any suggestions?

[lovestolift]

What are your goals? Are you working on getting bigger or smaller? If bigger is the case than don't worry about the calories, just eat and be glad mom's still cooking for you. Get all the free calories you can handle.

[WhiteGorilla]

Yea Im trying to get bigger, but the problem is that I don't know how many calories I need to eat the rest of the day, and I don't want to gain fat and muscle, just muscle at a slower pace

[atypical1]

Buy a scale and a cup measure and see just how much food you're eating at dinner. I just bought a small scale for $4 and a cup measure will be even cheaper. Use that to figure out your serving sizes.

james

[WhiteGorilla]

I might try that. Would I just take however much Im going to eat and dump it on the scale?

[atypical1]

Sure. If you have the recipes or the boxes with the ingredients then it should be that simple.

james

[aramirez626]

I might try that. Would I just take however much Im going to eat and dump it on the scale?

What I would do is dump each item on the scale separately. Weigh the meats, carbs and veg separately

[iCookie]

Try FitDay to log your food intake...

[WhiteGorilla]

FitDay wouldnt help because I didn't know how much of what I was eating. But I figured it out.
Thanks anyway

[dylanamus]

Once you've measured a few meals, you'll be able to estimate the rest to a close enough level of accuracy. I often find myself in the same position as you when I visit my folks during the week.

After a while of weighing and logging, you can just guess portion sizes quite accurately. Then it's just a matter of comparing sizes/weights with the nutritional data and creating a custom entry in fitday for each item. Then next time if you eat some or all of the same things, they're already there just waiting for you to add them to that day's log.

I've got about 40 custom entries in my fitday!