How to Figure Out Your Portion of Calories from a Recipe
Have you ever wanted to follow a recipe online, but NOT follow their portion recommendations? This is how you find the macros and calories from your own portions of a recipe.
It can feel tedious at first, but we’ll break it down in four simple steps!
Step 1: Get the CALORIES of the entire recipe
If you’re following a recipe online— it will usually provide the calories of the entire recipe. If you’re following a special family recipe, you can also plug the ingredients into a calorie-tracking app like MyFitnessPal or use Chat GPT.
Let’s say that you found your recipe online and the total calories of the entire meal is 5,000 calories.
Step 2: Get the WEIGHT of the entire recipe
This requires a couple of mini-steps:
Weigh the pot or pan that you’re cooking the meal in (without the food)
Weigh the pot or pan that you’re cooking the meal in (with the food)
Let’s say that the weight of the empty pot is 1,500 grams and the weight of the pot with food in it is 4,500 grams.
The equation to get the weight of the recipe:
Recipe in the pot − Pot weight = weight of recipe (in grams)
4,500 grams - 1,500 grams = 3,000 grams (weight of recipe)
PRO TIP: If you’re not the one cooking the recipe, make sure to let the person know that you need to take measurements before and after making it! This is an easily missed step, but its necessary for getting the calories and macros. You can always weigh the pot or pan after its washed as well, if you forget to beforehand. But don’t forget to get the weight of the recipe in the pot when its done!
Step 3: Figure out the amount of calories per gram
To figure out what your portions of the meal are, you have to first figure out how many calories the recipe is going to provide per gram.
Right now we know that the entire recipe provides 5,000 calories and the whole recipe weighs 3,000 grams. But we’re not going to eat the entire recipe in one sitting, so we need to figure out how many calories per gram this recipe provides. That way, you can take your portions (in grams) and figure out the calories for it too!
The equation to get the calories per gram of your recipe:
Total calories of recipe / total weight of recipe = the total calories of the entire recipe.
5,000 calories / 3,000 grams = 1.67 calories per gram
Step 4: Now you can portion out the meals however you would like.
From here, its easy! You’ll take your portion of the recipe (in grams) and multiply that by the number you got from step 3. So for this example, that’s 1.67 calories per gram for the recipe.
The equation to get your portion of calories from the recipe:
Your portion of the meal (in grams) x the calories per gram of the meal = the portion of your calories
Let’s say that my portion is a 400 grams.
400 grams x 1.67 calories = 668 calories
If you eat all of your portion, this is how many calories you will have eaten.
PRO TIP: If this is a recipe that you plan to use often, you can take note of the calories per gram from step 3.
You do not have to continue to repeat this entire process over again, unless the ingredients and portions are changing. The only thing that you have to repeat is step 4, which is an easy step!
And that’s how its done!! Stay strong friends!!
