Pre-op diet questions

This may be posted somewhere else and I apologize if I am being redundant here.
Anyway, I do not eat out a lot and do about 95% of my cooking at home. BF also cooks. We make most everything we eat from scratch. Soooooo, how do I figure out how many calories are in what we are cooking and all the other nutritional information? We never really measure anything as far as our ingredients but sort of go by taste and look so just wondering if anyone has some tips for figuring out that sort of stuff. i know that I am going to need to be documenting what I eat for a little while so I can show the nut what kind of eating habits i have but do I just put "1 chicken fried vension steak ,1 large baked potato with large dollop of sour cream, a cup of salad with a squirt of ranch dressing" and let them figure out the nutrition values from there?

I will be taking classes starting next Wed for 12 wks and they will be teaching us how to count Cal ans protein. If they tell us I will let you know. We cook almost every thing from scraxh too.

sounds like a class i need lol. thanks Snigglefritz!

I got a digital scale and had to weigh/measure everything. 
It's eye opening to see what you are really eating vs what you think you are eating. 

They will have us weight in and count our calories and proteins. Weill be doing labs too but I'm not sure yet what they will be looking for. My first class is next weeek but I'm excites

Well it sounds like you are on the right track. As other's have replied, you will need a digital scale and measuring spoons. Measure everything so that all you have to do is add the calories, fat grams, sugar etc!

Good idea. I have the scale and spoon. Does one need a food scale ?

Any digital scale that measures in grams up to a kilogram is good.

There are some "rules of thumb" about portion sizes that might help you figure out how much you're eating. A three ounce portion of meat, for example, is about the size of a deck of cards. Your cupped hand will hold approximately half a cup. A quarter of a cup is about what will sit on the palm of your hand, or in fluid about what you can down in one BIG swallow. A cup of food is slightly less than the size of your clenched fist.

For stuff like salad dressing, measure it a few times so you get a feel for how much you're really using. You'll learn to eyeball the amounts fairly quickly.

If all else fails, describe your portion sizes using body parts or familiar objects. The NUT should be able to help figure out the amounts from there.