Dinner Out?

danibabs

Hi!
Just wondering...how does everyone go about entering food/calories from a dinner out? I was out last night for a nice dinner at a restaurant and have no idea how to go about entering the food I had, which were pretty unique to the restaurant. Any suggestions? Thanks!

mama050709

Before we go out ANYWHERE for dinner, I google the restaurants nutritional information Or you could simply ask the restaurant for the information.

Sara1978

I run into the same thing-- we eat out a lot, and tend toward ethnic cuisines that just aren't listed on the MFP site. Non-chain restaurants, at least in this state, are not required by law to provide nutritional information, and most of the places we eat fall into that category. I enter the individual ingredients in the meal separately with the best estimate that I can make as to quantity.and what they were cooked in. It is imperfect, but a couple of calories off here and there aren't going to set you back much if you're as honest about them as you can be.

sweet4keeps22

I just fish around for the closest thing I can find on the board. Usually there's *something* that is similar enough. If nothing is coming up, I expand my search parameters. I try to make sure that what I'm entering is from a restaurant, too. For example, I frequently go to a Mexican restaurant that serves a spinach quesadilla not found on the board. I have a couple of options in terms of somewhat similar items I can substitute in, some of them are "homemade" but one of them is from a restaurant (that I've never heard of) called Skeeter's Bar and Grill. I err on the side of using the food item from the Bar, rather than any homemade item. If my search comes back with many search results, I tend to err on the side of choosing the item most similar, with the highest or mid-high calorie count. For example, if I go to a mexican restaurant and need a choice for my side of rice, there are about 20 different entries. I just pick the highest or middle one, never the lowest one, and I try to pick one for a restaurant I might think is comparable. If I absolutely can't find anything, I do my best to piece together what I think were the ingredients of the dish were and exaggerate things like oil/butter to add some calories for good measure. Hope this helps!

rockinright

The tough part is determining portion sizes and how much butter, etc they use that can drastically affect calories and fat. Usually I just save this type of dinner out for a "bad" day.

leavinglasvegas

I always look at the menu ahead of time and plan it. Call the restaraunt beforehand too, just to make sure I don't wind up with any surprizes.