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

[Shellula]

MFP is My Fitness Pal.

As others have suggested, I now work around Fitbit's limitations by
entering recipes into MFP first then creating a custom food in Fitbit from
the MFP data. This is working well for me.

[pixieschat1]

When logging food create an option for meals.

This will involve the following steps:

-Creating a "meal name".

-Adding ingredients based on measurements/serving size.

-Assigning a serving size. 

-Then searching for the "meal name" to log the serving size. 

For example,                                (not an actual recipe)

-Meal Name: "My Italian soup"

-3 ounces of tomatoes

-3 ounces of onions

-3 ounces of bell pepper

-1 15 oz can of tomato sauce

-4 servings (1 cup each)

-Once saved search for "My Italian Soup", then log your serving. 

Benefits: 

-Enables macros to be counted.

-Enables future access to your families go to recipes.

-Minimizes difficulties with calculating the recipe individually or through other websites.

-Allows meal prepping/planning to play w/ macros for future meals. 

[gtg947h]

You can kludge this by using the "meal" function to get the macros, then enter the entire recipe as a "custom food" and either enter it as "X servings" or "1 recipe".  It's more manual work even on the web portal, but it works for us. 

Downside is, if your ingredients are variable (e.g., I don't measure out exactly the same amount of beef for chili each time, but just buy the pack and use it whatever it weighs) then you have to do the process all over again.  It's fairly quick with two browser windows though.

It's not a great solution but it's a workaround.

[pixieschat1]

Thank you for the idea. We tried it tonight its definitely more time consuming but do able.

I'm hoping if enough people request this option, it will be initiated. Losing weight is difficult itself, then theres adding the idea of counting calories ...then macros, it would be nice to have an app that makes it simple so it doesn't become a distraction or discouraging. 

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @pixieschat1! Great suggestion, thanks for sharing.  I've moved it into a similar suggestion. Hopefully we will have support from other users since more votes and comments an idea has the more visibility and momentum it gains.

[Alexbro1]

If you are a person who regularly makes their own food from various ingredients it gets really tiresome having to constantly list each ingredient each time. I suggest that you could link all ingredients you use and save it under a name of your choice in the custom option so that you can simply click on that meal. Supermarket bought meals are not the same, there is absolutely no way a supermarket spaghetti bolognese has he same goodness as that which I make at home. 

[barbraines]

I would love to be able to select more than one item from my own history on the food log at one time.  I pretty much eat the same thing everyday or within a small list and would be great to be able to select all at once with a check mark and enter them all together.  My Fitness Pal allows this and works great. Fast and easy every afternoon.  For example my breakfast consists of 5 ingredients, let me select all 5 in one shot and be done with it.   Having to grab each item individually is time consuming.

[Cynthia6698]

Please add a way to select serving sizes or portions of a larger dish (soup, casserole, etc.). 

[ByondF1]

I would like to see 2 new options at the top of each meals logged entries for the day next to the "Add a Note" option that is already there. One would be "Create a Meal from Logged Entries" and the other would be "Copy Meal". The Copy Meal would allow you to copy and select a day and meal to copy it to. So say I had an 8 item meal for Lunch one day I could click on that option at the bottom of that entry and select a date and meal to copy it to. Many  of us on diet regularly eat the same thing over and over. This would be a quick option without having to set up Meals for something we are only eating for a week and then moving on to something else. Where the Create a Meal form Logged entries would be for longer term meals.

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks.

[Smiley_Axolotl]

It would be great to return to a previously entered meal and retroactively create a custom food/meal.  Right now you can only create a custom food by adding the details for a meal ahead of time and saving it. My suggestion would allow a user to look up all the individual ingredients, specify the quantity of each, then save as a custom food/meal.

Ex. If I previously inputted information for a lunch with 8 different ingredients, I would want to be able to select all of the previously submitted 8 ingredients and save as a meal.

[MrsChoate23]

Why has this continued to be requested since 2014 without it being done. Why are people who do cook whole foods being punished? WW and MyFitnessPal appreciate the value of being able to build a breakdown a recipe. I have to use other apps just to do this and its ridiculous. Get with the program fitbit. So disappointing.

[Will4Hike]

Thanks very much Ms Choat for your comment.
Will.

[pixieschat1]

gtg947h 

I loved your suggestion it had its flaws only because of system errors not based on your step by step process (ie: when entering in the serving on mobile it would resort back to recipe portions, but was easily fixed through computer access). Tonight I went on and it appears the system has updated and specifying the servings is no longer an option....have you found a go around for this or are we both in the same boat now?

[catherring]

I've only just started using the website dashboard, having been logging food on my phone up to now. I was excited to discover that there was an option to create and save a custom meal, avoiding having to estimate and log tiny amounts of all the ingredients every time you eat. I thought. So I created a "meal" for some banana bread I baked. I was less impressed the next morning when I wanted to log that I had eaten 1 slice (1/10 of the full "meal") for breakfast, but I could only add the whole thing, some 2,500 calories. And then I had to go through each individual ingredient and try to divide the quantity by 10, which was ridiculously time consuming. And inaccurate, because I couldn't divide them all precisely enough.

Surely there should be some way of specifying a quantity, just as you do with any other food? I very rarely cook just 1 portion of anything, so if I'm storing a custom meal/recipe, I want to log exactly what I've put in and then be able to specify how many portions that makes, or what size portion I ate.

[Julie843]

Please make this change!  Like adding a Custom Food, but you are adding a meal by inputting the individual ingredients that go into it - it will save so much time for repeat meals, and allow macronutrients to still be tracked...

[fromthestands]

I am unable to log 1/2 T for a food such as a salad dressing. The new version requires a whole number. I would like to go back to the old version where I could log foods in fractions.

[Steph418]

I agree! In the old format, I was able to enter both decimals or fractions. I miss this feature

[bobby2478]

Why was this removed?  As if people on a diet might not want to reduce their serving size to a fraction.  Not like 1/2 cup or 1/4 Tbsp aren't common measures in recipes or anything.

Come on Fitbit.  Who makes design decisions for your software?  Why mess around with something that isn't broken by "redesigning" it and removing functionality that was present (and was logical)? My guess is if you had a focus group of actual Fitbit customers and users they would say YES they use decimal or fractions for portion size.  Especially things like measuring spoons or cups that are in fractions and are used nearly every day.

[Steph418]

Right ON!

[rhohill]

Currently very cumbersome to log food when eating a serving from your homemade recipe.  Currently, outside of the app I have to calculate each ingredient and divide it by total servings.  This is very challenging as I cook a lot.

[gtg947h]

Instead of dividing each ingredient you could also make the entire recipe a custom food:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Eat-Well/Servings-of-custom-meals/m-p/3263956#M14079

However, I agree that it's a PITA to do it that way.  Recipes have been a thing for a long time and one would expect a recipe function to be a basic part of any food tracker.

[SuziR]

I would also love to add a recipe. As it is, I try to split my recipe into servings rather than putting in how much I ate and call it a meal. It's a very cumbersome system. I use mostly fresh ingredients, so my recipes are very long. I leave ingredients out if there isn't much to them, but they do add to my overall macros/calories. Please put in this capability.

[Will4Hike]

Amen !

[stacypfaff]

This goes right along with a handful of other feature suggestions to be able to record meals and designate portion sizes for the meals. I know that other apps integrate with fitbit, but why would I want to have to use two apps when one should be sufficient???!!!! I have been a fitbit user for five years and am loyal to my fitbit and plan to continue wearing one, but I am so frustrated that a simple "designate portion size" for custom meals isn't a feature. This is a health and wellness app and why would it not enable users to enter whole, healthy foods as meals and be able to split those meals into healthy serving sizes??!! Tracking macros is great, but not when you have to enter a meal twice (to log as food) or need to use an app that takes you away from fitbit. Fitbit is basically sending its users to the competition by having them use apps such as MFP. If this is a resource issue, I am curious to know what in app purchases would do to support it. I would spend $5 a month for some of these features in a heartbeat! You pay for apps like MFP. I am frustrated that a device I talk up to my friends and family so much can't accommodate requests that were started three years ago!!!! Here is an example of *one* of the other posts related to meal portion sizes. There are others as well. If they were all combined there would be 500+ votes!!!! 

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Split-meals-into-portions-in-app-rather-than-re-...

[ljdubbs]

I completely agree that having a "saved meal" would be extremely helpful to input repetitive meals. Inputting my breakfast every day gets really annoying, as well as when I track my favourite salad that I make most days. It would be nice to put those in as saved meals, and have it autopopulate with the amounts that I use, but have the flexibility to adjust the amounts for each item if I chose to. Thanks!