How to Edit Recipes on Lose It! Effectively

October 14, 2025 •

4 min read

According to user feedback, keeping custom recipes up-to-date is a common need for tracking diet accurately. Learning how to edit recipes on Lose It! is essential for anyone who cooks at home and wants precise calorie and macro information for their meals.

Quick Summary

A detailed guide on modifying recipes within the Lose It! app, covering two primary methods: editing from the recipe library via your profile and editing directly from the daily food log. Information on adjusting ingredients, serving sizes, and important nuances for accurate nutrition tracking are included.

Key Points

Access Recipe Editing: Edit saved recipes by navigating through your Profile to the 'Recipes' section for permanent changes.
Make Temporary Adjustments: Customize a recipe for a single day directly from the daily food log screen, without altering the master recipe.
Modify Ingredients: You can add, delete, or change the quantity of ingredients within any recipe to reflect your cooking changes.
Adjust Serving Sizes: Recalibrate the total servings of a recipe to ensure per-serving nutritional values are precise.
Use Weight for Accuracy: Weighing ingredients and the final dish is recommended for the most accurate nutrition data, particularly for casseroles or soups.
Understand the Impact: Permanent edits affect all future logs of that recipe, while temporary edits only apply to the current day's entry.

Why Editing Recipes in Lose It! is Essential

Life happens, and recipes change. Maybe you swap out an ingredient to reduce calories, or perhaps you alter a portion size. These seemingly small changes can have a big impact on your total daily intake, making accurate tracking crucial for weight loss or maintenance goals. Lose It! provides flexible tools to ensure your custom recipes reflect reality, helping you maintain consistency and precision in your food logging.

Method 1: Editing from Your Lose It! Profile

This method is best for making permanent changes to a recipe. For instance, if you've found a new, lower-calorie brand of pasta, you can update your go-to lasagna recipe permanently so all future logs will reflect the new nutritional data.

Open the Lose It! app: Launch the application on your mobile device.
Access your Profile: Tap the Profile icon, typically found in the top-right corner of the screen.
Navigate to Recipes: Scroll down until you find the Foods section, and then tap Recipes.
Find and Select the Recipe: Locate the recipe you wish to modify from your saved list. You can use the search bar to find it quickly.
Edit the Recipe: Tap the recipe to open it. Look for an Edit or a ... icon to begin making changes.
Adjust Ingredients or Details:
- To edit an ingredient: Tap on the specific ingredient you want to change. You can adjust the quantity, swap it with another food, or delete it entirely.
- To add an ingredient: Tap the Add Food option to search and include new ingredients.
- To change recipe size: Tap on the recipe size setting to alter the total number of servings.
Save Your Changes: When you've finished, tap Done (iOS) or Save (Android) to update the recipe in your library.

Method 2: Editing from the Daily Log

Sometimes you only need to make a one-time adjustment. For example, if you add a sprinkle of cheese to your soup on a whim, you don't need to change the base recipe forever. This is where editing from the daily log comes in handy.

Go to your Log screen: Open the Lose It! app and tap Log.
Add the Recipe: Tap Add Food and then select the Recipes tab to find and log the meal you're eating today.
Make Temporary Edits: When adding the recipe, you'll be on the screen where you select the number of servings. At the bottom of this screen, there is an option to Edit the Recipe.
Apply Changes and Log: Make the necessary adjustments to ingredients or amounts. These changes will only apply to this specific logged meal and will not alter your saved recipe.
Save: Tap Done to log the customized meal.

Comparing Recipe Editing Methods

To help you decide which method is right for your needs, consider this comparison:


Feature	Editing via Profile (Permanent)	Editing via Log (Temporary)
Effect	Changes the base recipe for all future use.	Changes only the specific entry being logged.
Best for	Adjusting foundational recipes, ingredient swaps, or standard portion changes.	One-off additions, subtractions, or minor portion tweaks for a single meal.
Process	Access via `Profile > Foods > Recipes`.	Access during the food logging process after selecting the recipe.
Speed	Takes slightly longer as you navigate to a separate section.	Very quick and convenient for on-the-fly adjustments.
Accuracy	High accuracy for consistent meals.	Allows for precise logging of non-standard meal variations.

Practical Scenarios for Recipe Editing

Scaling a recipe: If you make a larger batch of chili, you can adjust the total servings in the recipe settings to ensure the per-serving nutrition is correct.
Ingredient substitutes: Swapping chicken thighs for chicken breast can alter the calorie count. Update the permanent recipe to reflect this healthier choice.
Restaurant meal replication: If you've tried to recreate a restaurant meal in Lose It!, editing allows you to fine-tune ingredients as you perfect the recipe over time.
Portion control: Adjust the serving size to accurately reflect the weight or volume of food you consume.

Advanced Tips and Considerations

For truly accurate tracking, weighing your ingredients and the final product is a best practice. Some users on the r/LoseitApp community suggest weighing the finished dish and dividing by the number of servings to get the most precise data, especially for dishes like stews or casseroles. This technique is highly recommended for those serious about macro tracking.

For more information on using the app, you can refer to the official Lose It! Support website, a reliable resource for detailed instructions and troubleshooting.

Conclusion

Whether you need to permanently update a favorite meal or make a quick, temporary change to your daily food log, Lose It! offers a straightforward way to edit recipes. By utilizing both the permanent editing function within your profile and the temporary editing option on the log screen, you can ensure your nutrition data remains accurate and aligned with your health goals. This flexibility empowers users to track their intake realistically and efficiently, making Lose It! a powerful tool for any dietary plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

You can edit a recipe for future logs by accessing it through your Profile. For previously logged recipes, the past log entries are not updated. You must log the edited version of the recipe separately going forward.

Yes. If you imported a recipe (a premium feature), you can edit it by tapping the three horizontal dots next to the ingredient you want to change.

Editing a recipe (via Profile) changes the master version, which will affect all future instances of that recipe. Editing a food directly on the log only changes that single log entry for that day.

When creating or editing a recipe, you can tap on the 'Total Recipe Size' to change the number of servings. This will automatically update the nutritional information per serving.

Lose It! treats each logged meal as a snapshot in time. When you edit a recipe, it only applies to future logs, preserving the integrity of your past entries.

It's best to edit an existing recipe if the changes are permanent, like ingredient substitutions. However, if the recipe is fundamentally different, creating a new one helps maintain a clean and organized recipe library.

Yes, you can edit recipes by logging into your account at my.loseit.com. Navigate to 'Settings', then 'Recipes', and select the one you wish to edit.