Tracking question?

Ben2055

Hi everyone, I've been tracking for first time consistently for one week now and im really enjoying the weight loss, and seeing/understanding how many calories are in different foods its quite surprising actually!

My question is, when you go out for a meal, like an example could be a Chinese buffet, somewhere where your food is cooked and prepared for you, how do you track that using MFP? Like obviously you don't walk around with food scales in your pocket?

Also, I have been in a good, strong 600-800 calorie deficit each die, I feel fine, not hungry etc. But I normally have one cheat meal a week, so tonight im getting a doner kebab with chips. I will most likely go over my calories for the day. Will that harm me and my remaining week (saturday-thursday) weight loss progression?

jemhh

I find similar foods and log according to that. Based on experience, I have a good idea what 3 oz. of chicken, half cup of rice, etc. look like. I prefer ordering off a menu that tells me the ounces for the meat but I'm okay with making my best effort at estimating when necessary.

As for whether it will harm your weight loss progression, that's hard to say. Multiply your daily calories by 7 and then subtract what you eat all week long and that will give you an idea of your deficit. (Obviously if you usually add back calories for exercise you'll adjust for that too.) Also, depending on your weigh-in day, the sodium from the meal eaten out may cause you to hold a bit of water weight so keep that in mind. I tend to have an extra pound or two when I eat salty stuff like fries (chips.)

Ben2055

See, I have no clue! Im new to MFP tracking so am quite unsure how Id react to a meal out at a fast food outlets/restaurant. I think ill just try eat very low calorie foods for my first two meals so I have a better chance with the last.

tracymayo1

If you are going to a buffet, honestly, you are best to just enjoy it, not log it and move on. If you have had a large enough deficit throughout the week as you say, then you may just eat it up at this meal. I had a buffet meal a couple weeks ago. There was an entry for 2.5 plates that I used to enter something on my diary - but I wasn't really using it to count for anything...

Regular restuarants, you can usually find online menus/nutritional informaitno - so you can check in advance what you will eat and how much it will cost you...

jemhh

jemhh

^^^ Does that help a bit?

We eat out pretty often (2-3 times a week) so keeping those visuals in mind has helped.

SueInAz

Keep in mind that your calorie goal in MFP already includes a deficit for losing weight. So, if you have it set to lose 1 pound per week, for example, that's 500 calories per day. You can, therefore, safely eat an extra 500 calories in a day and maintain rather than lose. So, enjoy your buffet, be a little more sensible than you might have been in the past and don't worry about logging it. Or, if you'd prefer, log 1000 quick calories and call it even.

Ben2055

SueInAz wrote: »

Keep in mind that your calorie goal in MFP already includes a deficit for losing weight. So, if you have it set to lose 1 pound per week, for example, that's 500 calories per day. You can, therefore, safely eat an extra 500 calories in a day and maintain rather than lose. So, enjoy your buffet, be a little more sensible than you might have been in the past and don't worry about logging it. Or, if you'd prefer, log 1000 quick calories and call it even.

Wow? MFP tells me I need to eat 1960 calories. Ive been eating at a 600-900 deficit under that! So basically, that 1960 calories is already included in the deficit? Guess that explains the 4lb weight loss

jemhh

How much weight per week did you put in the spot where it asks how much weight you want to lose? Whatever you put in there is calculated into the goal that MFP gives you. As a 20 year old male who seems to be in fairly good condition (based on your avatar) you should be eating those calories!

The MFP goal takes your age, height, weight, activity level, and weekly goal into account. It gives you the base number of calories you would eat to meeting that weekly goal if you did no exercise. If you do exercise, the calories you burn doing that are added back in, which means that you can eat those as well. A lot of people are a bit wary about the calculation of exercises calories (i.e., not sure if they are accurate) so they only eat 50% of them back. But either way, you can eat at least a portion of them.

SueInAz

Ben2055 wrote: »

SueInAz wrote: »

Keep in mind that your calorie goal in MFP already includes a deficit for losing weight. So, if you have it set to lose 1 pound per week, for example, that's 500 calories per day. You can, therefore, safely eat an extra 500 calories in a day and maintain rather than lose. So, enjoy your buffet, be a little more sensible than you might have been in the past and don't worry about logging it. Or, if you'd prefer, log 1000 quick calories and call it even.

Wow? MFP tells me I need to eat 1960 calories. Ive been eating at a 600-900 deficit under that! So basically, that 1960 calories is already included in the deficit? Guess that explains the 4lb weight loss

LOL Yep! Didn't realize you could eat so many calories and lose weight, right? You're doing great!

Branstin

Go to the top of your web page and click MY HOME > Goals and study the way MFP breaks down your profile.

AskTracyAnnK28

As long as you're still in a weekly deficit you should be just fine.

So when you go to the buffet tonight try not to go too nutso and enjoy your meal. You might also find that you no longer had the big appitite you used to have and may get full a lot quicker than you did before.

maidentl

My experience is that as long as I continue to lose, I don't worry too much about those times I have to "guesstimate." I may need to be stricter when I have a smaller deficit but so far, it hasn't been an issue.

jgnatca

We eat out a fair bit. Typical Canadian restaurant portions are TWICE the calories I need. I suspect some American restaurants are even worse (Carl's Jr., Heart Attack Grill). A simple way to portion out the meal is to split off half the meal in to a takeout container. The calories for many restaurant chains can be found on MFP.

jgnatca

Ben, if you are eating to a calorie target and aren't hungry all the time, and losing weight a the same time, call it all good! Try a treat day and see how it affects your weight at the end of the week. If you are still losing, call it all good!

Ben2055

Ok cheers haha. Well yeah, I put my measurements in said 1960 calories so presumed thats how many calories by body is meant to have without the deficit. So I think I must be eating in a 1000 deficit a day?