Nutrition Information When Eating Out

stegallsarah

I'm struggling with logging food at times when eating out.

For example, my family had Thai for dinner last week (I ordered chicken pad thai to be exact) and I just tried to take my best guess off one of the multiple additions of that meal to the database. There were so many additions that I had no idea what to choose. My local Thai restaurant was not an option in the database nor does it have a website or nutrition information listed anywhere on their paper menu.

I am also seeing that some food has been added to the database but with the wrong nutritional information according to various restaurant websites so sometimes even though I think I'm logging something correctly, I'm not.

How do you all handle this? Looking for advice. I don't want to cheat myself and count fewer calories because in the end, I'll be the one who's cheated when I'm not noticing any changes.

pinuplove

When nutritional information for the restaurant is not available, I choose a restaurant entry for a similar dish that is, and compare the MFP entry to that restaurant's nutritional info online for accuracy (actually, I always do this the first time I use an entry, either to the product website, package, or USDA for fresh foods).

Verify verify verify.

Look for entries that will let you measure and enter servings by weight, not '1 item' or 'per each.'

cwolfman13

When I eat out, it's almost always at a local restaurant...when I was logging, I would just find something similar in the database and do the best I could. Ultimately, I started eating out far less when I was actively trying to lose weight.