The app and finding the right item

cathypeary

i’m going out to lunch on Thursday and I’ve already looked at the menu ahead of time. The only looks like that I’m gonna be able to eat is a chicken with dressing. When I search for a chicken Caesar salad with it comes up with everything from 200 cal to 650 cal. That’s a big range. Serving size they all say 1 salad. So how do i know what size it is. And how many oz of chicken how much lettuce how much dressing etc. Am I not looking in the right place?

AnnPT77

First, if this is a rare or one-time thing, there's no need to obsess about estimating it perfectly. If you get in the general ballpark, that'll be fine in the big picture.

If it's a chain restaurant, does their website have nutritional information? Alternatively, is there a chain restaurant that you can think of that has a similar salad? Those are places to get more well-founded calorie/nutrition estimates, then you can log by entering it in "My Foods" in MFP.

Failing that, wait until you eat it, mentally deconstruct it, and rough-estimate amounts of each main ingredient, and log that. Again, not try to obsess about perfection, just get a reasonable estimate. Sometimes, if it's polite, I discreetly snap a photo with my phone (no flash) so I can log it later. I leave something of standard size, like a fork, in the photo to help with estimating portion size.

Otherwise, just use one of those entries already in the database. When I do that, I sort of scan the list. If most of the entries cluster around one calorie level, I might pick one of those average-ish ones, or maybe high-average. If they're all over the map calorie-wise, I'd probably just pick a high-ish one and call it good. For things other than salad - which do tend to be in the database as "one plate" or similar - I might prefer to pick from entries that have some indication of portion size, like (making up an example) a meat lasagna that has a cups or inches/centimeters serving size vs. "one serving".

One day doesn't make or break the whole effort, and there's only so much worry or energy it makes sense to invest in estimating a rare event . . . not much, IMO. Just spend at most a few minutes, make a stab, then don't worry about it. It'll be fine.

If you stay with the calorie counting process, eventually your estimating skills will get better and better, too.

I hate it when I see people here stop going out socially or eating with friends because of fears about calorie estimating. Calorie counting doesn't need to overturn our lives in order for us to use this method successfully. Over the nearly 10 years I've been calorie counting - just under a year losing from obese to healthy weight, 9+ years maintaining a healthy weight since - I've estimated a bunch of times. I do the best I can with reasonable effort, then log it and forget it.

The rare things are a drop in the ocean. The routine habits we tend to do day-in, day-out on repeat the overwhelming majority of our days: Those are the ocean. If that frequent/repeat stuff is reasonably on point, the rare things aren't going to derail the whole effort, as long as we're reasonable and practical about it.

Best wishes!

akassabian1

Loved Ann’s tips. One more in case it helps. If there are other entrees you prefer and you feel comfortable doing this, I have asked for a to-go box at the start of the meal to put a portion of my meal in it before I eat. (I do this myself and don’t ask the server obviously.) This not only helps with portion size as most restaurants provide large portions, but also opens up the menu options more.

anamariaferraz

in the future ask for a to go box at the same time and put half your meal in that and voila! You have left overs and you should still be eating within a good calorie range. No waste 🤗

springlering62

A lot of the time, I’ll pull up a comparable restaurant that I know runs high calorie, and use their listing.

For example, when I’m at a local coffee house or a bakery overseas, I’ll add the Starbucks version of that chocolate croissant or cinnamon roll to my diary.

If it’s sushi, I’ll pick middlin’ to high of what comes up.

if it’s something I’m unfamiliar with, like pepian, I’ll look to see what an average serving of that is, and select that

After a while you get a pretty decent feel that, oh, that unfamiliar pepian dish in front of me is pretty much chicken, spicy sauce, squash and potato, and you’ll be able to eyeball if it was 400 or 1200 calories

But usually, like Ann says, I just break meals out down into parts and add the parts to my diary, and usually add a half to whole tablespoon of oil as a cushion, since I don’t cook with oils, but know the rest of the world does.

Every Thursday evening, I pick up a slice of pizza apiece from our lovely itsy bitsy local family Italian restaurant when I walk home from yoga.

I’ve gone so far as to estimate and save the ingredients as a meal, so on Thursdays, I can just pop it in my diary. Click n’done. 👍🏻