logging when you don't have measurements or nutritional information?

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  • cs2thecox
    cs2thecox Posts: 533 Member
    While we're on Vietnamese, my nearest one does full nutritionals:
    http://www.phocafe.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Pho-Nutritional-Guidelines-2017_web.pdf

    I can't vouch for them being right for other restaurants too, but might be vaguely helpful.
    I try and have a look for other restaurants that do publish nutritionals if the one I go to doesn't... Sometimes easier to go through restaurant websites rather than the MFP database!
  • RedheadedPrincess14
    RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    I usually pick a similar meal from a similar chain restaurant and use that info. It's good enough for me based on how much/little I care about logging numbers.
    Yeah that's basically what I did lol! Sure it's a pretty big variance from one place to the next but since you the only on occasion, I agree- good enough for me
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
    cs2thecox wrote: »
    While we're on Vietnamese, my nearest one does full nutritionals:
    http://www.phocafe.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Pho-Nutritional-Guidelines-2017_web.pdf

    I can't vouch for them being right for other restaurants too, but might be vaguely helpful.
    I try and have a look for other restaurants that do publish nutritionals if the one I go to doesn't... Sometimes easier to go through restaurant websites rather than the MFP database!

    The portion sizes must be smaller compared to what I see at the typical places in my area in the United States. The "small" portions still have giant bowls that have 5-7 cups worth of pho in them (or 1.2-1.5L of soup for you folks in the civilized world). I usually get around ~700 calories per bowl for my estimates, but it's quite a lot of food given that calorie count.

    b5jgg21lu6m0.jpg
  • RedheadedPrincess14
    RedheadedPrincess14 Posts: 415 Member
    The_Enginerd wrote: »
    If it's a place that has a dish similar to a chain place where I am familiar with the food and serving portion, I will use that information for the estimate. However, many places I go that do not have a chain restaurant equivalent (Vietnamese/Korean/Japanese/Thai/Indian). In these cases, I use recipes that look similar to what I ate and build it as a recipe in MFP or log the separate ingredients. This was a dinner at a Vietnamese (pho) restaurant.

    dj5wd02gdp5u.png


    Lol yeah that's basically what I did but faaaaar less intensively than you did. I've done this with salad bars and burrito bowls before though. Way to go on this one!
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    When I'm trying to log regularly and so logging is important just to keep up the habit, I deal with situations like that by estimating calories (I estimate a bit high). When I first started logging and probably some months into my weight loss I would actually break it down into ingredients and log them (again high) and then add extra butter or olive oil. I never liked the "log similar dishes" approach since there aren't really similar dishes I found trustworthy for the places I go to, and things vary too much. (The one exception to this is pizza, where I use a local thin crust place as my model even though it's not where I normally get pizza.) After a while, that approach got way too annoying, and I switched to what I'm currently doing.

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