Dinner at the In-Laws

rosettafaery

Hi All,

My husband and I are having dinner at his parents tonight.
My query is how do you calculate calories from a meal you haven't prepared yourself? Is it just a case of guess work?
Also, the meal is no doubt going to be a little more packed with calories than I'm used to... Does anyone else eat less calories during the day in the run up to eating out to compensate for the extra intake?

Thanks!
Nikki

neandermagnon

If it's not going to be a regular occurrence, I'd advise not worrying too much and just enjoy the meal while being sensible with portion sizes. One meal of not tracking won't sabotage your progress unless you eat ridiculous quantities of it. Then go right back to tracking after that.

Eating less prior to the meal can be counterproductive, as it may make you more hungry, and therefore likely to eat a lot more at the actual meal. Personally, if I'm going to be going somewhere that there's a lot of high calorie food to eat, I'd rather not be hungry, then I'll just eat small portions. I don't mean using up my entire calorie allowance before going there, I'll still leave calories for the meal, just that I know if I'm hungry I'll end up stuffing my face but if I don't feel that hungry then portion control is a lot easier.

If you're going to be eating there regularly, then it's a bit more tricky as my advice above could easily lead to going over on calories, personally I don't mind doing this once in a while, but it's not something you can get away with on a regular basis. So maybe if that's the situation you could see if you can get her recipe and use that to calculate the calories, or find out what dish it is and look up the calories for a typical version of that dish. It does involve some guesswork and that does make eating round other people's houses a bit tricky. It's not something that I do regularly, hence me not stressing about going over my calorie goals on days when I do (in fact I generally don't track these meals).

rosettafaery

Hi again,

We visit both sets of parents maybe monthly or fortnightly at most. So it's regular but not every night.

I will take your advice and not stress myself out about it all. Eating normally during the day is sensible like you say as I don't want my energy to dip and then binge during the dinner.

I might try and break down the meal into components though and record the calories - it might be off but at least it should give a vague idea as to how I'm doing with my intake.

Thanks,
Nikki