Anxiety over tracking unknown foods

Raegold

I really don't want to get crazy anxious or 'orthorexic' over my diet, but I don't know what to do about certain foods... Like I had a half portion of a short rib flatbread from a restaurant, don't even know how to figure out the macros for it. What do you guys do for that sort of thing? I don't eat out often, so its not a huge problem. But now I'm feeling like I have no clue whether I ate 400 or 1000 calories...

janejellyroll

I track accurately when I'm at home (weigh solid foods, double-check database entries, avoid generic entries, etc) so it doesn't matter that much if I make a mistake in estimating when I go out. Since I only eat out 1-2 a week usually, this has worked very well for me.

Behxo

Sometimes restaurants have online menus with the nutritional information, so next time you go out and know where you are going, try looking it up beforehand

TavistockToad

Guesstimate from what's in the database... Half a meal is no big deal in the grand scheme of things even if you vastly underestimate

Moxie42

I get anxious/frustrated about that too, but I've learned that if I'm not eating out too often, being off or unsure about the cals doesn't ruin my progress if I've been consistently and accurately logging everything when I can.

I do estimate restaurant meals by trying to find the nutritional info online or at the restaurant, and if that doesn't work, I find the closest thing to it that I can in the MFP database (I'll usually pick an entry that's on the high-average side of the listings).

It's actually helped me not eat out as often because I like knowing how many calories I'm consuming. I used to eat out almost every day, sometimes multiple times in a day on weekends, and now it's more like 1-3 times a week, which allows me to more fully enjoy dining out and not get as anxious about the calories.

cwolfman13

You just do the best you can...in the grand scheme of things, if it's not a regular occurrence, it's pretty irrelevant.

One of the issues I take with calorie counting is the obsession and anxiety it causes a lot of people (it did me) and things can go down a pretty dark hole pretty quickly.

Raegold

cwolfman13 wrote: »

You just do the best you can...in the grand scheme of things, if it's not a regular occurrence, it's pretty irrelevant.

One of the issues I take with calorie counting is the obsession and anxiety it causes a lot of people (it did me) and things can go down a pretty dark hole pretty quickly.

I definitely agree. It's hard to find that balance with calorie counting of using the information in a helpful way without letting guilt or shame get into the mix.

Thanks for all of the answers. I ate at a local restaurant that doesn't have nutrition info, so I just did my best to estimate. Now I'll move on!