Anxiety eating foods prepared by others?

fourteeners

When in situations where you can't prepare your own food, how do you estimate calories well? For example, I eat a salad from work every day, but it causes a lot of anxiety because I don't know exactly how many calories it is. What if I'm way off in my estimation? When you can't measure your good exactly, how do you not freak out?

Thanks for feedback!

Camo_xxx

I trust the skills I have developed over time and make my best estimation. I have no reason to freak out over 1 meal being off.

SuggaD

I eat home cooked meals daily that my family prepares so I have to estimate all the time. I've gotten really good at it. With practice, you'll get good at it. And it's all estimation anyway.

megsta91

i try to stay clear of being put in situations like that. why not pack your own lunch so you can have peace of mind? or copy your works salad with your own ingredients? when i can't help it at all, i try my best to estimate and i always estimate high.

fourteeners

I eat the salad at work because I'm poor! and it really helps to have that many free meals a week. And I try to estimate high, but what if I'm still under? It could have a huge effect on total calories for the day! I don't have a lot of wiggle room. Sometimes, if I eat the whole salad, I can't eat dinner because I'm worried I'll go over...

yirara

I eat lunch at the work canteen each weekday, and to be honest I'm guessing quite a bit. The canteen is required to post nutritional information, but more often than not I think they take that information from here (home cooked meals or big caterers) or just make it up. The basmati rice for example is 189kcal, 8g fat, 24g carbs, 4g protein. It doesn't work out mathematically and it doesn't taste like they really put that much fat in it. But I think they are overestimating big time and log it as this. With things they seem to underestimate (chicken spinach curry for 90kcal) I do take the weight for the chicken, and add a bit of curry sauce based on recipies I find online. I usually bring little containers to the canteen and put my food into those. Those I can put on a scale. I did this mediculously in the beginning but am mainly doing spot checks now (I have a hard time estimating vegetable curries, though rice and protein are pretty spot on), and I'm still losing.

meritage4

do you have a history of eating disorders? You are over thinking this.

Estimate work food. Your progress or lack of will let you know how you are doing. Don't skip dinner because of salad!

dinobomp

My opinion is...there's not much in a salad that you need to worry about, except croutons and the dressing! That's where all the calories and carbs are! The advice you've gotten is good...just estimate the best you can, and if after a couple of weeks you are not losing, then maybe it IS a little more than you thought. I highly doubt it, though. Like I said, not much to worry about!! (now if it were fried chicken and gravy with mashed potatoes, that's a whole 'nother story!!)

segacs

I think there's a fine line between wanting to be accurate and needing to be in control of everything all the time.

The food scale is a valuable learning tool. It can be useful to learn about portions and to understand how many calories there are in the foods you typically eat. It's also a useful tool when you get stuck on a plateau or in a rut and want to get yourself out of it.

But the scale is also like a bicycle with training wheels. Sooner or later you have to take the training wheels off and trust your balance to keep you upright on two wheels. That's how you'll live -- and maintain -- in the real world.

Log the salad as accurately as you can and move on.

fourteeners

Perhaps I can ask them to not mix it on day, but put all the ingredients in the box separately, and then go home and weigh everything? I don't have a good ability to guess right now, I think. And people always say you probably are eating more than you think...

I have something like 40 lbs to lose, and I don't want to mess up!

Amanda4change

I only get anxiety ridden at food my husband makes (all three times he cooked we've gotten food poisoning). I ask for sauces, and dressing on the side and do my best to log it. If I'm off for one day it's not a big deal to me.

Merkavar

I don't stress over it.

But maybe your in a different boat eating a unknown meal everyday. For me meals that I'm really unsure about are rare and won't destroy my weight loss.

Maybe over estimate it a little to be on the safe side. Say it's 800kj enter it as 1000kj

Or if it's really causing stress or anxiety maybe don't eat all your kj those days, basically the same as over estimating.

fourteeners

Can you guess by how full it made you feel? I feel really full if I eat the whole thing, and sometimes even if I eat around half. Does this mean it has a lot of calories? What makes you feel full? Is it fat content?

megsta91

I don't think the feeling of being full can gauge calories, because sometimes I can eat 1k worth of spaghetti and still be hungry, but what a can of tuna and feel full for hours. In my opinion, protein makes me feel satisfied for the longest amount of time. Like someone said before, the calories lay in what you put on it. Opt out for the croutons and get your dressing on the side. Without that, what's in it? Vegetables and cheese, maybe an egg, some lean meats. All pretty reasonable. Guess the best you can, wait a few weeks and see if you're dropping weight. Then tinker around with it to get the results you want.

atypicalsmith

The trouble with free meals from other places is that you can't gauge the calories. Restaurants somehow pack tons of calories into their meals. A couple of years ago, when I turned 60 and was qualified for $1.00 meals at the local senior center, I did so not just for the low price, but also to make friends. It was great, but within three months, I had gained nearly ten pounds. I assumed since it was meals for seniors, they were low calorie and low sodium. Nope, nope, nope! When I inquired, it turned out the meals ranged between 800 - 1200 calories and nearly 100% of the daily sodium requirements. Add that to whatever I ate for breakfast and dinner, and it is easy to see why I gained so much weight in such a short time. If you want to lose weight, only eat foods with calories you can count.

SLLeask

What kind of salad is it? Depending on if it is meat or cheese or just salady things like lettuce and tomatoes could make a huge difference to calories. Ask for no dressing. If it's chicken, look at the size of the pieces / pieces together and then do a one off weigh at home of a similar size and you'll have a decent guestimate for future reference. Same with the cheese or whatever else you have on it.

paperpudding

fourteeners wrote: »

Perhaps I can ask them to not mix it on day, but put all the ingredients in the box separately, and then go home and weigh everything? I don't have a good ability to guess right now, I think. And people always say you probably are eating more than you think...

I have something like 40 lbs to lose, and I don't want to mess up!

That actually sounds a good idea - if you could do that once,then use that amount as 1 serve of same salad each time you eat it from then on.

fourteeners

The problem is sometimes it's a lot more than others. Today, there were 4 pecan halves, but sometimes there are double that...today, not very much feta, sometimes a lot! The rest of the ingredients are vegetables or fruit, except the salad dressing...

Is it a bad idea to eat vinaigrette? What's the best kind of salad dressing

Alatariel75

fourteeners wrote: »

The problem is sometimes it's a lot more than others. Today, there were 4 pecan halves, but sometimes there are double that...today, not very much feta, sometimes a lot! The rest of the ingredients are vegetables or fruit, except the salad dressing...

Is it a bad idea to eat vinaigrette? What's the best kind of salad dressing

Any kind that tastes good. Vinaigrette is a mix of vinegar and oil, generally olive oil, and is good. Creamy dressings tend to be higher in fat, so make sure to account for that and "low fat" dressings tend to have added sugar to make up the difference, so don't assume that low fat = low calories.

fourteeners

Also, when you can't use a scale because other people are around, how do you estimate well?! I had 5 asparagus spears at dinner, and I don't know how to account for that in cup measurements... 1/2 cup, 1 cup?! It's so stressful! What if I'm way underestimating?? I wish I could just know exactly what calories are in everything, or that I could eat the same thing all the time!

Alatariel75

If you go to the non-asterisked entry for asparagus it has a whole bunch of portion sizes including small, medium and large spears. The non- * entries are the MFP USDA entries and always have a huge amount of options for weight, cups, or individual pieces. You can just track "5 spears". Having said that, I have lost over 20kg (45lbs) with non-exact vegie measurements, I guestimate at best.

segacs

Your issues go way past even the normalized amount of obsessiveness that MFPers tend to have about the food scale.

Seriously, if you can't eat the occasional restaurant meal or meal cooked by a friend without going berzerk, then you need to get some help. I don't say that to be mean or judgmental, but just to point out that this sort of stress is not something you should have to just deal with or live with.

It's commendable to want to stick to your calorie goal. But over- or under-estimating by a few hundred calories on occasion is not going to throw you off course. It's just too small a discrepancy to matter in the long run. Maybe you'll lose the weight 0.01% slower. But who cares? There's no race to the finish line.

And, not to stress you out further, but a certain amount of inaccuracy is inevitable even when you make all your own food and weigh everything. Nutritional information can be off by up to 20% on packaging sometimes. The exact calories in everything you eat can never be known to that degree of precision.

Do the best you can, log and track, and you'll know if it's working based on the results you get. And don't stress about the occasional non-homecooked meal. Life is too important to turn yourself into a lab rat.

paperpudding

fourteeners wrote: »

The problem is sometimes it's a lot more than others. Today, there were 4 pecan halves, but sometimes there are double that...today, not very much feta, sometimes a lot! The rest of the ingredients are vegetables or fruit, except the salad dressing...

Is it a bad idea to eat vinaigrette? What's the best kind of salad dressing

I still think taking it home one time and weighing the separate ingredients gives you a template to use for future times.
Treat it as an average - if you think the take home one had less pecans than normal, add a bit more to the pecan weight.
- Do this once only, put all the ingredients in the recipe builder and call it do school salad one serve and then take it as the average - every salad you then have just call one serve.
- It won't differ that much, not enough to matter.

JanBran1

I honestly think you are stressing too much about it. From what you say it is mainly salad vegetables. One way to get round this is to add to your 'snacks' an item called 'incidentals, vitamins,bites, tastes' - it adds 100 calories to your intake and should cover the odd variation in the amount of feta, nuts etc in your daily salad. Just decide on a calorie amount for the salad, if over the period of a month you are not loosing any weight while still coming in under your alowance, then you may need to adjust the salad calories upwards.

fourteeners

I've only lost 7 pounds in the past three weeks, and this week with my period, less than 1 pound! I don't know why my body isn't losing more. I'm discouraged and don't know what to do!

segacs

fourteeners wrote: »

I've only lost 7 pounds in the past three weeks, and this week with my period, less than 1 pound! I don't know why my body isn't losing more. I'm discouraged and don't know what to do!

That's too fast. You should be losing more slowly than that.

Alatariel75

What should you do? Lower your expectations to a safe, sustainable level. 1-2lbs a week is what you should be aiming for, and you've exceeded that in the last 3 weeks. You didn't gain overnight, you won't lose overnight. Try to apply some logic to the process.

segacs

myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1575987-eating-disorder-resources

fourteeners

Why is fast weight loss not ok? I don't really understand.

I need to lose 7 pounds by the Monday after next.

deaniac83

Fast weight loss is not OK because it puts your body through high stress, not to mention extreme deprivation of things you like can put you back into a binge phase after a while, ruining all your hard work.

As for not knowing exactly how many calories something is, every count is an estimate, no matter how good, they are never super precise. And they don't need to be. The goal, remember, is to create a calorie deficit, not to obsess over individual items of food or workout routines. So live a little and eat your work salad.

segacs

OP, you're either trolling or you have a serious eating disorder. Either way, I don't think there's any point in continuing this thread. Please get help.