Eating out

embym

Being a college student, I go out to eat with my friends once a week or more. The city I live in has a ton of great family owned and seemingly healthy restaurants, but the only problem is that many of these places don't have a menu with nutrition facts.

How have you recorded food that you don't have calorie data for? I would like to support local businesses by going to these restaurants, but it's so hard to record. Any advice would be appreciated.

Jamie42887

Most restaurants will/can give you the nutritional facts of the meals if you ask.

heather62803

I usually try to record something close. I will order something that I believe to be a pretty generic entree and try to find something similar or generic in the MFP logs. As long and you think you are close in the estimate you will be OK. Pinpointing the exact caloric value of restaurant food is something that is very hard to do because we usually don't know how the food was prepared, but as long as you are close and you leave a little wiggle room in your daily allowance I think you would be fine! Good luck!

christina_theresa

I'll try to search the food I ate on the date base on MFP. I'll guess-tamate how many calories I ate by what I find. I usually try to add up just to be on the safe side. Hope that helps

Tia_Connelly

If it is similar to something you eat at a chain restaurant, try using their calorie listing as a guide. And always estimate up, even grilled food is usually grilled on a vat of butter.