Resturant calories

stephenpsinclair8751
stephenpsinclair8751 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
How do people work out how many calories are in a meal when out at a restaurant? Is it just a best guess at something close.

Answers

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,755 Member
    I eyeball it and estimate the weight
  • paints5555
    paints5555 Posts: 1,233 Member
    Estimate the best I can. If I am off significantly for 1 day, I won't stress out about it.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,846 Member
    Restaurant website, or check for similar meal at similar restaurants website. If that fails, I just ballpark it as a total amount, and I have private food entries for 100 cals each so I just guess it's X amount of those.

    I'll usually plan ahead what I intend to have at a restaurant, and if needed maybe consume a bit less earlier in the day.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,218 Member
    Guess. You can usually get close. Between eyballing it and understanding what the rough calorie amount is by educated guessing and then adding 20% more you'll be close enough. Being off once in awhile won't really have an impact on the big picture.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    edited March 17
    If we accept that to lose weight we need to be in the ballpark more often than not but not necessarily always, then we eat like a reasonable person, make a best guess and keep on going.

    It does boil down to: you can't know for sure if you're not the one making it. It will always be a guess, sometimes more and sometimes less correct.

    But does it matter that much if it is a once in a while thing?

    If it does matter, then it is not strictly a logging problem, it becomes more of restaurant eating strategies issue, some of which also help with the logging issues.

    In any case: a quick picture of your plate is a good start for post meal logging
  • SafariGalNYC
    SafariGalNYC Posts: 1,457 Member
    I guesstimate. None of the restaurants I go to have cals on websites.

    So far so good. 😊
  • mjbnj0001
    mjbnj0001 Posts: 1,263 Member
    edited March 18
    Best guess using comparable recipes in the database. It's wrong in the absolute precise sense, OK in the general sense. I don't strees too much on this as I minimize my eating out. Vacations, however, is an issue. I try to be generally "sort of good" while away from home, and use my scale weight before and after to determine if I was. It's a vacation after all, lol.
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,205 Member
    best guess. and i honestly only eat out maybe once a month.

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