Eating out and logging food

cathawthorne

anybody have suggestions for how to log food when you eat out at a restaurant? For example, I just had an egg while omelette with toast at a restaurant and have no idea how to accurately measure the calories, as I didn't make this meal myself. What do others do?

julesan902

I normally just look up "generic _______" and run off of that. Some places may already be in the system. Say you had an egg white omelette from Cora's. Most times if you look up "Cora's egg white omelette" it will appear. If not, just go off a general idea. I have no idea how many calories is in my gram's bread, so I just use a generic "homemade white bread slice." At least you're counting something.

akirkman86

Yeah I just try to find the closest thing that I can. If it's from a restaurant, and that restaurant isn't in the database, I will use something similar from a different restaurant since restaurant portions are usually more generous than something I would make at home. I have even been known to look up something similar in the database and then google image search it to make sure it looks pretty similar to what I've eaten. At the end of the day, just get it as close as you can and that's all you can do. And if you're really not sure, err on the side of overestimating the calories if you are trying to lose weight.

CSARdiver

I eyeball it - given there's 20% error in all nutritional labels anyway and overestimate calories in, underestimate calories out. If I eat back anything it's the protein.

diannethegeek

Sometimes you just have to do the best you can and guess high. I do what the others seem to do, pick a generic restaurant entry that's close and choose the highest entry I can to be safe. I know others will try to deconstruct the dish and log the components separately, but I know myself and I'd end up leaving out the things I don't think about like butter and oil. If you can do it that way, it works great for some people.

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