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

[RichGee]

They say they've been working on it since February. I don't think they have at all.

Richard Gibson

[SunsetRunner]

   I too love fitbit and have just upgraded to an Alta. I love the info available when I track my eating, but have to go to caloriecount.com to enter a full recipe so that I can get the nutrition info per serving for that recipe. That is what is missing in the fitbit "meal" calculator.

   I find it really difficult to believe that the moderator of this feature request does not understand what is being asked for. When I put in a "recipe", which has to be entered as a "meal", then select that "meal" to track, I get the whole thing, all of the ingredients, which means if I enter a recipe as a meal, and that recipe makes 8 servings, then when I track that "meal"/"recipe", it lists all of the ingredients and tracks that I have eaten 8 servings. I am not eating 8 servings of a meat loaf recipe that I would like to enter, I am only eating one serving (1/8th of the recipe), but I am not able to indicate that in the tracker, or in the meal entry dialog boxes.

   What is being requested by everyone is that when you enter a "meal", which is the only way to enter a "recipe" in fitbit, please include a dropdown or a box where you can enter how many servings are contained in that "meal"/"recipe" so that we can select what portion of the whole recipe we are eating.

   I understand that the rational is that it is a meal consisting of individual foods, so maybe the fitbit programmers need to add a NEW feature that actually calculates a recipe in addition to being able to enter components of a meal. Take a look at caloriecount.com, this is what is needed on the fitbit site. It would make it perfect!  

   Is this more understandable? Thanks!

[ashwolve]

Food - to be able to Add a custom serving / size not in drop-down List

I have a charge HR and currently found that when adding Food serving amounts there is no option to input your own serving size (like when you add a food you can input all the data yourself).  I would like to be able to add my own serving size as pizza 23 inch might not be for everyone (this is just an example) also when making my own stuff would like to add stuff like 1 pie/1 pizza instead of trying to find a way off inputting with the sizes put in, as home made produce can be weighed as a whole (not always standard sizes ie 400g) - please remember UK sizes are different to US sizes

Also if you make your own meal , lets say stew and you make it in a 600g pot instead of trying to measure how much a portion would be and change all ingredients let just use as a suggestion 5 ingredients all at 100g so the totals for meal is 500g can i want to select Stew 100 grams and all ingredients get calculated as 20g (20g x 5 ingredients is 100g) instead of each seperat ingredient being added into log and having to go into each entry and change to 20g

on the same subject when you type in a serving size it says xxx inputs found but can only see 8-10 options, surely an easier way is to have a dropdown menu under for example pizza and we can scroll down the options instead of trying to guess what the other 600 entries are (if you are talking 1 slice and there are 30 entries for how many grams it is, perhaps a drop down with scroll function would allow us to see all entries)

Many Thanks

Regards

Wayne

 Moderator edit: Labels

[lmnop123]

This is a huge issue for anyone who cooks at home in an effort to stay healthy.  Fitbit should support this and have a way to enter recipes with portioning in an easy manner to track daily intake.  In my view Recipes should be in addition to Meals, as it is a different concept.  I think this is a huge deficit - and I don't think I should have to go to myfitnesspal to do this - that means I need to mess around with two apps instead of one.   Surely your Marketing and Development teams see this as a priority???!!! (I don't care if you have a recipe database - I just want to be able to enter and calculate food value of a home recipe within Fitbit.)  Thank you for listening.

[RichGee]

They don't seem to listen though!

They said it was something they'd look into ages ago.

I agree, it sucks.

Richard Gibson

[mblackhart]

Agreed! Definitely think this an essential element of the Meals section!

[SunsetRunner]

I second this.  I CAN use MyFitnessPal to do this and export to Fitbit, however it seems to name the entry in Fitbit as "(Myfitnesspal Diary Summary)" or something like that, rather than detailing what I've added.  I'd like to be able to create recipes in Fitbit and not rely on two seperate apps.  So far, this seems to be the only drawback of Fitbit.  I was a premium subscriber to Lifesum, which was good also (the app was good, to be clear... the website was dreadful).  So - Fitbit, add recipes and we're golden!

[SunsetRunner]

I second this.  I CAN use MyFitnessPal to do this and export to Fitbit, however it seems to name the entry in Fitbit as "(Myfitnesspal Diary Summary)" or something like that, rather than detailing what I've added.  I'd like to be able to create recipes in Fitbit and not rely on two seperate apps.  So far, this seems to be the only drawback of Fitbit.  I was a premium subscriber to Lifesum, which was good also (the app was good, to be clear... the website was dreadful).  So - Fitbit, add recipes and we're golden!

[SunsetRunner]

I totally agree with this.  I CAN use MyFitnessPal to do this and export to Fitbit, however it seems to name the entry in Fitbit as "(Myfitnesspal Diary Summary)" or something like that, rather than detailing what I've added.  I'd like to be able to create recipes in Fitbit and not rely on two seperate apps.  So far, this seems to be the only drawback of Fitbit.  I was a premium subscriber to Lifesum, which was good also (the app was good, to be clear... the website was dreadful).  So - Fitbit, add recipes and we're golden!

[chase1124]

This certainly would not be the most difficult feature to add to the Food tracker and would drastically improve its usefulness. The idea of interconnecting other services is fantastic but many users of fitbit use it because it is a pretty automated solution (my guess, you have the research) -- along those lines it would be fantastic to have this functionality in the Food tracker included in the app for simplicity and this isn't that difficult of a feature to add. Anything MFP can do, you guys can do better 🙂 

[scubatim84]

Yeah I would love for FitBit to have this. I find it pretty sad that I have to download and use MyFitnessPal simply to track my food, because while FitBit allegedly lets you track food intake, it actually fails miserably at doing it to the point that users can't even use it.

[JBP15c]

+1 to this post. Would be nice nnot having to rely on multiple apps.

[Kimiark]

I agree!  Trying to put in a recipe, then dividing by number of servings then posting all the divided nutritional info...AARRGGHH!  Please make this easier, like MyFitnessPal.

[Rissellc]

Is there a status update here? When will this actually move from "reviewed"? I feel like this has been a long-standing request for years at this point, aside from this Idea Exchange post. How can you expect us to stay loyal to Fitbit and continue to use your platform when such a simple feature can't be implemented on a timely basis, yet new products have been coming out year after year? Sell a complete product please.

[Greypaws]

At some point since I asked the question about adding a recipe converter, a moderator said they'd pass it onto the design team. 2 years later, I'm pleased that this keeps being bumped up, unfortunately, Fitbit doesn't seem to care.

My solution is to track all my activity on www.sparkspeople.com  They've the most awesome recipe converter, a way to save your recipes and you can make it public, should you choose to. Add in a really helpful community for support, they've got Fitbit beat by a mile. Especially for those of us that choose to cook from scratch and don't live off frozen foods or fast foods. Go check out sparkspeople.com, you may be a convert as I've been 🙂 The only way Fitbit is going to sit up and take notice is if people leave Fitbit for other sites to do their tracking.

[ollyelly]

  😞 

Here goes another effort requesting serving size inclusion either during creation of a favorite custom meal, or when choosing same favorite custom meal from the favorites/meals list later.  I cannot eat 6 quarts of soup at a sitting.  That is, however, what my ingredient list creates, so I need to be able to stipulate that my custom favorite meal serves 12 (one pint).

Requesting the feature "HOW MUCH?" be added somewhere in the custom favorite meals section.  Currently it is assumed we are creating a single portion meal.

On my computer, the area is located on the LOG FOOD PAGE, second "tile" down on the right, labeled "FAVORITES"/'MEALS' tab. I create a homemade soup and add all the ingredients that went into it here under "create a meal" at the bottom. At no time am I asked how many servings this list of ingredients makes and it really must.  If not, a "meal" becomes 6 quarts of soup with thousands of calories and no way to change this down the line.

Clicking on my new, custom homemade soup meal in Favorites/meals tab, up pops only one question: "WHAT TIME OF DAY?" do I want to add this meal to my daily log. It does not ask how much of this meal to add, one serving or 1/12 of the meal, which is a second opportunity unaddressed, it simply assumes my custom created meal is a single portion. I pick the time of day and POW!!! 6 quarts of soup for lunch on my log...I ate 1/12 of this amount but have no way to say so.

The missing serving callout is required for custom meal creations, there are at least two places it can be included. Please add "HOW MUCH" to custom favorite meals, either during creation, or when choosing the meal from the list.

Thanks for jumping right to fixing this issue!!!

[KellyDC]

Yes, please consider changing the meal entry to allow for a fraction of a meal. Or at least provide a reason -- here -- why the change isn't being considered.

[JJ.65]

Need to be able to add recipes into food log to better track calories.

Moderator edit: Labels

[jennyjane]

I couldn't agree more, have you ever tried to log three meatballs!!  when a serving is 5 and the recipe makes 30, I really don't want to have to think that hard!!

[mluhring]

I would like to see better recipe handling as well.  To test out functionality, I created a meal with all ingedients and amounts to make a batch of chili.  This batch of chili makes 6 servings.  I was hoping a meal would be like a recipe, but no it is not.  Adding a meal to your lunch adds all the individual ingredients, which is dumb.  I ended up taking the nutritional totals of all items in the meal and dividing them by 6.  I then had to create a new Food called Homemade Chili and then manually add all of the nutrition items.

We need a recipe function that can take all of the total ingredients and then create a serving size, which will proportion all of the nutrition accordingly.  My Fitness Pal does this great.

[Cat53]

I would absolutely love that idea!  I have learned a lot about food in the last 8 months, but am clueless on the nitty gritty, i.e. calorie breakdowns and combinations of each ingredient.  

Was getting ready to suggest the exact same idea.

[hazzel]

I have been adding food items to my logged foods for a long time. I can only see the most recent  20 items. I have logged hundreds of food items. How do I access everything I have logged? 

[Bumbo]

The algorithm for food logging and searching is just bad. If I want to add "gardein chicken strips" it gives me all the results for every menu item at every chain restaurant that uses the word "garden."  I'd like the search algorithm to at least trust my spelling. Also if I type in the word vegan it should narrow my search results not expand them. 😡

[KellyF76]

I use MyNetDiary as it allows me to add custom foods and build foods from recipes. 

Especially when it's better to make from real ingredients than buy, for example pancakes... rather than buy the expensive mixes I make with whole wheat or rice flour and reduce the sugar and fat content. It's really time consuming to figure out portion size calories for bulk made items like chili, soup, casseroles etc. 

[Estea]

Please allow us to add our home made foods into Fitbit. I cook my food from scratch and I don't like having to use MyFitnessPal or Spark People to create my recipes. It is inefficient and a waste of time to have to enter all our information in 2 or 3 websites.