Just a bite mentality

Coffee_addict22
Coffee_addict22 Posts: 86 Member
in Food and Nutrition
How do you manage the just a bite mentality? Ive been tracking my meals if I'm not eating at someones house and I don't know whats been cooked. Just a bite of this and that is sure to add up in calories but I don't know how to break the habit lol. Ill think to myself "I don't have tot track that if I just have a bite.
Really struggling to do MFP and see results and I think this is why. That and the fact that some meals I don't track because I have no idea how many calories I ate I.E mom and pop restaurant that doesn't have nutritional info. My calorie goal is 1200 a day. but I'm sure Im going over that because of the stuff Im eating like this. How do y'all keep consistent and not let yourself cheat. I really need to drop some pounds but getting frustrated.

Replies

  • amgreenwell
    amgreenwell Posts: 1,267 Member
    Best way to is to LOG everything. Get yourself a scale and use it at home for all meals and anything you take to work too. When you go to someone's house you'll begin to naturally realize portion control . Same with restaurants. It doesn't take long to figure out what is higher in calories and what can be substituted to help with deficit.
    Unless you log and know exactly what and how much is going in your mouth you'll never get a grasp on what 1200 calories is.
  • Coffee_addict22
    Coffee_addict22 Posts: 86 Member
    amgreenwell wrote: »
    Best way to is to LOG everything. Get yourself a scale and use it at home for all meals and anything you take to work too. When you go to someone's house you'll begin to naturally realize portion control . Same with restaurants. It doesn't take long to figure out what is higher in calories and what can be substituted to help with deficit.
    Unless you log and know exactly what and how much is going in your mouth you'll never get a grasp on what 1200 calories is.

    Thank you for the info! I guess you just never giver yourself the freedom to sample stuff? I've struggled in the past with anxiety eating and I'm trying my best to not just throw stuff in my mouth without thinking about it. Thats a real struggle for me.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    When I was losing weight, I made the deliberate decision to minimize eating things that were difficult to log. This was a choice I made because I wanted to have more consistent results.

    For some restaurant meals, I used online nutritional information for similar dishes from other restaurants to create an estimate and would log that. So the portobello burger and fries, for example, I had at a local bar may not have been exact, but since it was based on a restaurant-style preparation, I figured it was close.

    I also didn't do "just a bite." Again, this was my decision. I don't think it's mandatory for success. I just didn't want to deal with it. If there was a time when I really, really wanted to taste something, I would quick add it as 50 calories. This made me limit my bites to things I considered "worth it."

  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    @amgreenwell is spot on. The other thing to do is relax. Stress will make you hungrier and less content. Figure out what your maintenance calories are. Maintenance is what you can eat in a day that will not make you gain or lose weight that day. It is important to know this number because it can help you relax and understand that 1200 may be your goal each day but if you set your goal for 1.5 lbs loss a week you eat another ~750 calories without doing anything negative to your loss efforts. It is a hard lesson to learn and it took me some time to get it but I have come to realize that I don't have to lose weight every single day I just have to lose weight most days.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Coffee_addict22 wrote: »
    How do you manage the just a bite mentality? Ive been tracking my meals if I'm not eating at someones house and I don't know whats been cooked. Just a bite of this and that is sure to add up in calories but I don't know how to break the habit lol. Ill think to myself "I don't have tot track that if I just have a bite.
    Really struggling to do MFP and see results and I think this is why. That and the fact that some meals I don't track because I have no idea how many calories I ate I.E mom and pop restaurant that doesn't have nutritional info. My calorie goal is 1200 a day. but I'm sure Im going over that because of the stuff Im eating like this. How do y'all keep consistent and not let yourself cheat. I really need to drop some pounds but getting frustrated.

    In maintenance, I'm a nibbler at home. I'm currently cutting my winter weight and I just have to be disciplined in having my 3 meals per day and planned snacks and not nibble on things when I get home. It's cliche, but it's a "just do it" kind of thing...just have to be disciplined.

    I eat mostly at mom and pop restaurants and when I logged, I would just find something comparable from somewhere else in the data base and make the best estimate I could. When I'm actively losing weight I make a conscious decision to eat out much less than when I'm in maintenance. You can pretty much count on most restaurant entrees to be in the neighborhood of 1,000 calories give or take if you eat the whole thing.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    saragd012 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    When I was losing weight, I made the deliberate decision to minimize eating things that were difficult to log. This was a choice I made because I wanted to have more consistent results.

    For some restaurant meals, I used online nutritional information for similar dishes from other restaurants to create an estimate and would log that. So the portobello burger and fries, for example, I had at a local bar may not have been exact, but since it was based on a restaurant-style preparation, I figured it was close.

    I also didn't do "just a bite." Again, this was my decision. I don't think it's mandatory for success. I just didn't want to deal with it. If there was a time when I really, really wanted to taste something, I would quick add it as 50 calories. This made me limit my bites to things I considered "worth it."

    This. When my goal was to lose I made decisions to avoid things I wouldn't know how to log. If I really wanted to "just taste" something I would quick add 50-100 calories for it depending on how calorie dense similar food items tend to be. I know 100 calories seems silly for a bite, but for reference, I had a "fun-size" twix the other day before checking calories. That damn candy was 80 calories. I was so mad, it's barely two bites, I could have had TWO Dove promises for those calories. Sorry, I digress. The point is, sometimes it's better just to pause and do a quick search online or on the app to get a general idea what that taste will cost you. That way you can make a more informed decision. You might decide it's worth it, you might not, but at least you'll be more mindful.

    Lots of things that are going to tempt us to take "just a bite" are going to be higher calorie, things like desserts or appetizers (at least in my experience). So 50-100 calories seems like a very reasonable estimate to me.

    I forgot about looking it up before taking a bite! I would do that too. Even if you can't find an exact match, seeing an estimate for the thing I was thinking about eating would often dump some cold water on the desire. And even if you decide to go ahead and eat it, you've injected a level of thoughtfulness into the process. You aren't just seeing something, wanting it, and eating it. You're taking an extra step, deciding to eat it, and owning that decision.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    saragd012 wrote: »
    This. When my goal was to lose I made decisions to avoid things I wouldn't know how to log. If I really wanted to "just taste" something I would quick add 50-100 calories for it depending on how calorie dense similar food items tend to be. I know 100 calories seems silly for a bite, but for reference, I had a "fun-size" twix the other day before checking calories. That damn candy was 80 calories. I was so mad, it's barely two bites, I could have had TWO Dove promises for those calories. Sorry, I digress. The point is, sometimes it's better just to pause and do a quick search online or on the app to get a general idea what that taste will cost you. That way you can make a more informed decision. You might decide it's worth it, you might not, but at least you'll be more mindful.

    I added an entire meal called "Margin of Error" to my diary. I use it for bites, which for me are rare, restaurants, and guesses. I don't trust restaurants so I put in a buffer number usually 20 percent. If I eat something from a friend that I can't weigh I will find the closest DB match and then add a calorie amount to MoE.
  • Coffee_addict22
    Coffee_addict22 Posts: 86 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    When I was losing weight, I made the deliberate decision to minimize eating things that were difficult to log. This was a choice I made because I wanted to have more consistent results.

    For some restaurant meals, I used online nutritional information for similar dishes from other restaurants to create an estimate and would log that. So the portobello burger and fries, for example, I had at a local bar may not have been exact, but since it was based on a restaurant-style preparation, I figured it was close.

    I also didn't do "just a bite." Again, this was my decision. I don't think it's mandatory for success. I just didn't want to deal with it. If there was a time when I really, really wanted to taste something, I would quick add it as 50 calories. This made me limit my bites to things I considered "worth it."
    I never though of pulling up a comparable! great Idea!
  • Coffee_addict22
    Coffee_addict22 Posts: 86 Member
    serindipte wrote: »
    I log every bite. Took one chicken nugget the other day. Weighed it. Logged it. The way I see it, every bite I take is "just one bite" and that's how I got fat.


    I'm going to start doing this!
  • Coffee_addict22
    Coffee_addict22 Posts: 86 Member
    @saragd012 I think this is where I'm messing up the most because like you said some stuff is way more calories than you think. I''m going to try to get really strict and see if I can drop some pounds!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Coffee_addict22 wrote: »
    @saragd012 I think this is where I'm messing up the most because like you said some stuff is way more calories than you think. I''m going to try to get really strict and see if I can drop some pounds!

    Yep, it can be a challenge at first . . . but it really worked for me! And it doesn't have to be forever. Now that I am maintaining, I don't log bites and I'm more flexible about things that can be difficult to log.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
    How important is accuracy? It varies with the situation and the person's outlook on logging. E.g. some people with 100 lb to lose have a lot of success early on without being accurate, whereas working on the last 5 vanity pounds (slower rate of loss, less margin for error) requires greater accuracy. Similarly, some people log the first couple weeks to get a grip on portion size and have pretty good success without logging thereafter, while others log well into maintenance.

    I'm in the latter group (log as a daily habit), so I care about bites, licks, tastes (BLTs). At a certain point, it's just easier to say "no thank you" to BLT's than to log them. And I'm probably more mindful about it when I'm cutting than when I'm near the lower end of my maintenance range. E.g. if I'm enjoying a special dinner with someone and the food is really interesting, it's fun to trade bites. I generally assume the bites we trade are a wash. I will have looked at my plate at the beginning to appreciate the presentation and also estimate how I'll log it, so I'll just go with that. At holiday parties, by contrast, I pass on the hors d'oeuvres. Fancy passed food can be tiny and really hard to deconstruct, and when I'm paying more attention to the people at the party, I'm just not going to bother trying to estimate. Plus I've realized it often LOOKs pretty but tastes meh.

    If you make the decision that accuracy is important to your success, then you do need to deal with the BLTs one way or another.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,738 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    Coffee_addict22 wrote: »
    @saragd012 I think this is where I'm messing up the most because like you said some stuff is way more calories than you think. I''m going to try to get really strict and see if I can drop some pounds!

    Yep, it can be a challenge at first . . . but it really worked for me! And it doesn't have to be forever. Now that I am maintaining, I don't log bites and I'm more flexible about things that can be difficult to log.

    Me too. I give myself 200 quick add calories a day for things I take tastes of or just don't want to weigh. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to up it to 500 or 600. :)
  • Cbean08
    Cbean08 Posts: 1,092 Member
    If I am having "just a bite" then I'd assume I am tasting something that is different than the meal in front of me and is probably from someone else's plate. To me, sharing is a two way street, so if I take a bite of their food, I give them a bite of my food. If the other person declines or if there is no other person, than I remove 1 bite of food from my plate or I leave it there at the end.

    The calories might not perfectly line up, but I can use common sense to see that me trading a bite of chicken for a bite of cake won't be equal so the piece of cake should be smaller than the piece of chicken I'm leaving.

    Also, 1 bite is 1 bite. "Just a bite" times 5 is an additional 5 bites of food that could easily add up.
  • okiewoman510
    okiewoman510 Posts: 1,313 Member
    I also used the 50 cals per bite when I would sample something I couldn’t track. If I new what it was, I would log the bite, otherwise +50 cals quick add.

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