SaraRiley's Journal, 29 Nov 23

So if you’re making something from scratch like the vegetable soup, then go to Cook Book and start a recipe. It’s a pain to do the first time but once entered it makes things a breeze in the future. You’ll be able to put in all the ingredients separately in the amounts you use to make the whole pot, like 2 carrots, one celery stick, the oil, meat, etc. It will also prompt you for things like a few cooking instructions—you don’t have to be very detailed there if it’s just for your use (you do not need to publish it for it to be saved in your Cook Book). But the main thing is that you’ll have to estimate how many servings this pot of soup will have (it will ask for that, too). Then when you add a serving of that recipe to your diary, you will see its caloric and macronutrient breakdown, and see how many grams you have in the serving. So you can then actually weigh out your bowl of soup at dinner and know if you have 1 or 1.2 or 0.75 servings there and you can make that diary entry a bit more precise (you can adjust how much of the serving you have). That’s why it’s important to input all the heavier ingredients in the proper amounts—even the noncaloric ones like water, salt, etc. Finally, if you change something in the future when you cook that soup again, you can quickly edit the recipe. 

Thank you so much I will try this because the way I'm doing it now is guessing about how much of each vegetable and meat and juice is in the bowl after I get out what I want to eat and before I eat it. And it ends up being 800calories for a bowl of vegetable soup which sounds high on the calories for it..I had been just guessing about the meat I eat to like I did with the roast and vegetables I had the other day and I figured it was 3-4oz of meat for lunch but then for supper I ate just the pork roast and no vegetable and weighed it on the scale I just bought last week or so and I had way more than I did for lunch almost double the meat and it was only 4 Oz of meat so I need to be able to weigh my protein intake better because I log it as so much but apparently I am not even eating close to that. 

Nice drop Sara!! The colder weather does tend to bring on the desire for soups and stews, Agnes is spot on with the recipe instructions, keep it going my friend! 

I use the recipe feature all the time. After I see the total calories I decide how many servings it should be for a reasonable amount. 3,4,5,6…Then I separate it into individual portion containers to keep myself in check. 

I do this method for all soups and stews. For things like meatloaf, lasagna, even brownies I cut it into portions but leave it in the pan it was cooked or baked in. Hope this helps. 

That’s a great method, honeebuns, I’m going to use it! 

Very well done 👏👏👏👏 Good luck with your bathroom remodeling. 

We had our bathroom redone a few months ago. It ended up taking about three months because our old water lines had to be replaced too. Also ran about 3x over budget, partially from the water lines and partially because I didn't have him cost out all materials in writing. Plus evidently most contractors have hard luck stories to keep their clients advancing more money. We do love our shower and still like our contractor, but it was definitely a learning experience. 

Thanks everyone I tried doing the recipe feature and couldn't do it right so I went ahead and guessed at it like I normally do maybe I can figure it out I'm going to keep messing with it til I figure it out...and on our walk in shower I figure it will cost about 10k-11k we are only renting our Mobil home because I wanted to buy a place at the beginning of this year and still after many years nobody would let us buy a mobile home in a park since I didn't have land to put it on so I didn't have enough credit to buy a house I tried that route and because I have a felony from 2015 back when I was on drugs and it's just a possession of narcotic charge but I didn't have it in my bottle and had it in my purse I got the charge and went to jail and still to this day nobody wants to rent to someone who has a felony or even sell them a place, so we rent from one of the only landlords that acceptsppl with a felony...But with my hubby and I both being disabled and with knee pain and he's just had a knee replacement last Oct and it still bothers him ,his surgeon wants to replace his right knee now but Chris won't do it yet since he's still having alot of issues with the left knee ..we qualify for help with a home modification thru his insurance which is medicaid mine is Medicare but they don't pay for stuff like that, so medicaid is paying for it and to replace our deck/ramp that's bowing in and ready to fall down which we both need.His mom just got hers done for elderly/disabled people and medicaid paid for her a walk in shower and metal ramp but it was like $12k just for the shower since they had to replace the floor in her bathroom and replaced toilets in both bathrooms she has ,ours should be a little cheaper. Thank God his insurance will cover it or we wouldn't be able to get it done... 

I do my meals different than Agnes. I make a chicken and vegetable soup. I weigh the chicken before cooking, also the potatoes, carrot, and onion. For the carrots and onion, and celery I may use cup measurements. I also use a can of diced tomatoes. After I cook the soup, I enter the ingredients in my food diary, mostly guessing based on the serving size. Maybe 3 ounces potato, 1/4 cup chopped onion, 4 ounces chicken breast, etc. Then I save it as a favorite meal and later can add it as a meal and I can make adjustments based on portions. 1 cup of the soup came out to about 130 calories. I use the FS website, not the app 

I'm surprised at how many calories are in soup too.  

That's how I measure soups when I make them. Especially because I sometimes use bone broth.  

Congratulations on your weight loss! Combined food dishes are hard to calculate so for me, I’d make a single serving and count each ingredient for homemade soup. I’ve realized eating too many daily calories has an affect on my diabetes 2, so I’m strict about calorie intake. It’s not just what I eat that affect my blood sugar levels but, how much. The soups I make are simple ingredients so not hard to divide ingredients and make single servings. 

*affectS