Guessing Calories in Restaurant Meals?

jeenim

How do you all go at guessing calories when ordering in restaurants? (not fast food chains where the calories are often easy to track down)

I have been scrolling through options and looking at several different versions of the same thing, checking out the calories, and picking the one that seems to be the most common.

It feels like a bit of a lottery though, and when I'm away from home I'm not so sure my diary entries have much relationship to reality. I'm trying though.

How about others? Any tips?

dad106

If don't know what a restaurant meal has it, then I tend to break it down item by item IE Chicken, pasta, steak, hamburger etc.

I figure its a bit closer then trying to use what someone else put.

pinkupooh

I also track things individually rather than finding generic items from the database or guessing myself.

katismiles

I look at the averages for other things when I do that. It helps, you might not be completely correct, but it's better than nothing

TrailRunner61

Ask them! I do and most of them don't mind, especially if you go there often.

scruffykaz

It really frustrates me that some restaurants don't have calories on their menus. Here in the UK, there is a big thing about obesity but it'd help if everything had a calorie count on it....anyway, that's the end of my rant!

I tend to break down the elements in the meal and guess. Like somebody has already said, better that than nothing...

ngarrett75

I've had alot of success checking online ahead of time. If you type in 'name of the restaurant-nutritional information', you should get good results. That's what I do.

dia9004

I tend to stick with salad, no dressing and seafood, because i don't eat meat. The truth is most restaurants cook greasy and with alot of butter. It's very diffucult to pick a place to eat, because alot of places to not cater to healty. Sad but true.

groovyfirechick

I do the same thing as some other folks said. I break the meal down into parts and input those as best I can. Sometimes you can find calorie info on the shops websites.

roachhaley

I try and add stuff individually if the restaurant doesn't have nutrition info. But stuff like sauces can get tricky because everyone uses a different recipe. If you pick something like a steak or fish it should be easy to add up how many calories it was (as long as it doesn't have a bunch of stuff on top of it)

gatorginger

I google the resturant and check and look to see if they have any low calorie meals, or I use it as a cheat day and have what I want especially if it is a weekend. A lot of the resturants have weight watchers meals and calorie conscience menus though. It helps if you know what resturant your going to ahead of time. When you are adding food to your page type the resturants name in because maybe they already have it in the system.

keenest37

Today was tough. We went to a restaurant for lunch that had a small, healthy buffet. There was no way I was going to try & figure out the calories. I did not overeat. I would have liked more but stopped eating. There was a carrot dish, a squash dish, a potato dish, a few cold veggie dishes. I had one tiny pecan tart. I'm trying not to stress over it. I put it down as 600 calories & didn't eat much the rest of the day. I don't see this happening a lot so I'm going to let it go & move on. 😀

Lillymoo01

82EC wrote: »

I just do a quick add of 500 calories and then make a food note of what the meal was. It’s probably nowhere near accurate but restaurants in Australia don’t provide calorie counts so I feel there’s not much I can do.

To me, 500 calories sounds pretty low for most restaurant meals unless all you have is grilled meat and vegetables with little, or no, dressings.

bllaura10

I would do what others have suggested and build it by item or I pick the one with the reasonably highest calories from the database and go with it. At least that will keep me in check for the rest of the day.

asliceofjackie

I create a food called "Restaurant" (or something), which is 750kcal - that includes one standard restaurant serving of semi-healthy choices and a small drink. I don't go for McGreasy or anything when ordering foods in restaurants. I try to stick with grilled and dressings on the side. Some restaurants I've added correct numbers for. Example, when I go to Subway I know the calorie content of my sandwich because it's on their website. Same with hamburger bars (like McD/BK) etc.

amskinner87

For me it depends on the type of meal.

For example at a pub recently I had a Ploughmans which is individual things like bread, cheese, coleslaw, pickle, ham, salad etc. For that I guessed a weight of each individual thing on my plate (taking a photo for reference) using my months of logging to help me and erring on the larger side where neccesary.

But then I went out to a burger restaurant and had a huge burger with all sorts of things in and chips with flavourings etc. I'd have struggled to break it down into component parts so I found 3 restaurants with large, complex burgers and worked out the calories for one of their most decadent burgers and chips. I then came up with an average between the 3. I used McDonalds, Gourmet Burger King and Wetherspoons.

Neither of these methods is accurate but probably in the right ball park. I guess the main thing is to not do it too often and defo cut back if your weight loss has stalled.

JohnnytotheB

katismiles wrote: »

I look at the averages for other things when I do that. It helps, you might not be completely correct, but it's better than nothing

IMO, it's difficult. I do what katismiles does as well, the average. Sometimes I will just populate the meal with the calories only (quick calorie add section).

xxzenabxx

Personally I think the average restaurant meal (where you haven’t ordered grilled food) is around 1300-1500 calories. That’s including dessert. Might as well save most of your calories for this one meal! I avoid eating out as much as possible when I’m in a deficit. If I want something I try and make it at home. Also it depends. If you eat out a lot then you will find it hard to guesstimate and lose weight. Even when I see fitness YouTubers eating out they normally opt for a salad or something healthy. If you’re down to the last 20 lbs then eating out becomes harder. I would go for 1500 calories because it’s better to overestimate the amount.

gallicinvasion

I do all of the above, making sure to add like 10-15 g of butter to account for some extra cooking oil.

texasredreb

My last restaurant meal was on Wednesday (my birthday!). I chose a light meal of two shrimp tacos on corn tortillas (each had 4 shrimp, about 2 TBS of vinaigrette based cole slaw, an avocado slice, and a drizzle of chipotle mayo). The plate also contained rice (I did not eat any) and vegan black beans (1/2 c). I had a fresh, "skinny" margarita (tequila, lime juice, agave nectar, and club soda). I had 7 chips (I counted them onto a plate) and some salsa. My friend had two cocktail olives in his drink and I ate them too! I counted 845 calories for the meal.