Able to create a custom meal and indicate number of servings

[mrshrdng1016]

I would really like to be able to build a recipie and then indicate how many servings it makes and how much I ate and see nutritional break down by servings too.  I think it would way easier than trying to enter all ingredients then when its time to eat the leftovers I can just add the recipie serving.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[joemcw]

These comments are almost one year old and I see no solution to the problem.

I created a meal and then tried to log a 'portion'  

Impossible!

So, I create a meal and then suppose I consumed the entire dish, 2300 calories!

Come on guys, get busy here.  A year with no solution?

[MuseCat]

I'm surprised that Fitbit didn't do this in the first place. There are many other recipe converters out there and is a simple thing to write. So I hope you can add this feature so all of us that cook from scratch can calculate the calories.

New Fitbit Flex User

[JSchumacher]

I too am waiting for this....

[StephB80]

I totally agree with you: with this actual function, the counted calories are only an estimation. It would be very helpful to have a "meal"- function like the above written idea.

[gingie1987]

I couldn't agree more!  I really like MyFitnessPal's ability to take an entire recipe including it's serving sizes and breakdown the nutritonal information.  It can even import recipes online and determine their nutritional information.  I'm still pretty new to my fitbit (only had it a week and a half) so maybe there's a way to use myfitnesspal to track my food but have it exported to my dashboard

[CindyFitbit]

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about being able to create a custom meal and indicate number of servings with us. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. If this suggestion receives votes from other customers and gains popularity, it will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

Watch this space for status updates. In the meantime, try visiting Health & Wellness to talk with other members about all things health and fitness.

[Scuffiegirl]

Will there ever be an option to create recipes??

[Tanya218]

It would be great if in the "enter custom food" section you could create recipes for quicker adds in the future. For example, I often make a Mediterranean salad that has 8 ingredients. Instead of logging the calories of each ingredient individually each time, it would be great to create a recipe/custom food using data from the database. After it's saved in my custom foods, I can just click it to add it again in the future

[Misssandra]

I too would love to have a recipe builder on this site. I do lot of my own recipies so I can control the calories and nutrition. And I too have not been able to syc Spark People with my fitbit account.  Other than that, I love everything fitbit!

[Phedre]

I agree.  I don't make large meals in advance, but I don't always eat my entire meal.  I would like the option to be able to enter 1/2 or 3/4 when I log my meal.  It's ridiculous to have to go in and edit each ingredient individually.

[pcsupport]

Agree with this (which has now been implimented) but what it really needs is the option to then divide the "custom meal" into portions.

Imagine you want to cook something, you create a custom meal and enter the ingredients then tell the Fitbit app how many portions it will make.

For example, I make a big Macaroni Cheese for the whole family that has about 8 portions in it. Logging that custom meal at the moment puts me way over my daily intake!

[pcsupport]

It's nice to see that "custom meals" has been implimented but what it really needs is the option to then divide the "custom meal" into portions.

Imagine you want to cook something, you create a custom meal and enter the ingredients then tell the Fitbit app how many portions it will make.

For example, I make a big Macaroni Cheese for the whole family that has about 8 portions in it. Logging that custom meal at the moment puts me way over my daily intake!

[219Liz]

I second!!!! I have to go to sparkpeople and use their calculator every time so i can find out what the per cup or whatever serving size is so I can add it to fitbit!

[AngelaMa]

@gone-plaid Thanks for sharing the idea! I would like to ask for more information about the idea you shared with us as currently it is possible to add a custom food on your Online Dashboard and select the serving size you wish to use. Keep in mind that the serving size you choose is the one that is going to appear on your food log every time you select the meal. 

[JSchumacher]

Yes... but it is easier to create the entire dish...and then break that
into servings.

[ReallyButton]

I really hope they add this feature some time soon. For those of us that make meals for a family, its hard to input the serving size that I ate when I made a meal that had 8 servings. If we are only making 1 serving foods its fine the way it is but thats not how most of us are cooking.

[Zehn]

I make meals for the whole family but am the only one counting calories.  I would love to be able to add all the ingredients into a meal and split the meal into portions.  Most often I end up setting aside single servings as I make the meal to mix my own later, creating a lot of extra work.

[Chickenrungirl]

Wish there was a create a recipe section - as the majority of my food is home cooked, the same meals fairly regularly, it would be really useful to build and store the recipes somewhere and then just be able to 'drop' the details into the dashboard when recording your food for the day.  I know this is not possible currently, but please fitbit can it be done? Thanks

[SunsetRunner]

Would love if FitBit would add the ability to enter Recipes like MyFitnessPal does so you enter all the ingredients you added with the amounts and tell the recipe how many servings you get and that is it.  And you can go to Recipe to add to food diary based on number of servings.  And this must be available on Android App as well to be useful.

Moderator edit:  Labels

[MarreFitbit]

I'd love to have this option too! At least we could log any food knowing we can divide them into portions. This also will give us more accurate results, wont' it?

I'll make sure to pass this along to the Fitbit Team, thanks for sharing good and helpful ideas!

[KBold]

I am surprised this is already not a feature. The code for it would not be very complicated. You simply create a meal with the full recipe, and you set a serving/proportion. The code can do one of two things. Sum all the information provided, divide by the serving, and return a net amount under a simple meal. For example, chocolate chip cookies and their calories. Add the ingredients in the meal to get 5528 calories. Divide by 30 or whatever number you need. The program then logs "1 cookie - Chocolate Chip Cookies, 184.26 calories." Or it could just take all the ingredients and divide by the serving and log them. However, I find that way very messy and doesn't allow for you to easily add that second cookie you may have eaten while it was still warm. (Post on Simplifying Meals) I bet a programmer could write this in a day, and have it tested and deployed in a week.

[KBold]

It would be very nice if the meal logging were much more simplified. Instead of adding all the ingredients, just add the meal name itself, perhaps with servings/portions. For example, the other night I made a dinner with three different dishes. One had 30+ ingredients, one had 5, and one had 10. The log section was a mess. I realized I had to alter an amount that I miscalculated (why we need portions), but it took me forever to find it, especially since there were repeats where ingredients were in more than one meal, like salt or butter. It would be easier if the log displayed "1 serving - Dish 1," "1 serving - Dish 2," and "1 serving - Dish 3." I could then click on that an alter the thing I needed to. It will clean it up nicely, and make it easier for people to go back in their log and actually know what they ate. It would be very simple to code. The software simply reads the meal name, index the ingredients, and sums the things up. The Log section already does 99% of that. It would just require it adding the name.

Moderator edit: Labels

[KBold]

I thought about it a bit more, and realized the coding for it is all there already. Here the steps to make this work Fitbit.

1. Use the meal panel to create a named meal with all the ingredients.
2. The software calculates all the ingredients, saves it like it is a Food entry, and tags it as a Meal. 
3. Portions/servings are added or adjusted just like they can be for a Food.
4. User enters meal as a Food, and it appears like a Food would in the log section.
5. If the user clicks the logged meal, they can alter that instance, or the overall meal.

The finally thing would look something like this:

Food: Chocolate Chip Cookies (Meal), Serving: 1 cookie, Cals: 180, etc.

I am sure this can be cleaned up to be more efficient, but this way it can be implemented very quickly.

[ktruman77]

Yes!

I used to use Diet Organizer and have used Livestrong as well, both of which had fabulous custom recipe sections.

I have committed to cooking more at home as part of my plan and it would be great if my tracking software was a one stop shop.

I would gladly input my recipes and would even love to be able to share recipes with other users.

[windkew]

Why is this not a thing already!? So anoying to keep adding multiple foods into one meal when i have this meal every week!

-Kyle