Figuring out calories of food you are unsure of?

vikkiitoria

So lately I've been tracking my calories and measuring everything out in a journal. I'm hoping to start tracking on mfp tomorrow. I get how to do it when you have a product with nutritional information, but how about when you go out to dinner, eat at a friends house etc. how are you supposed to know how much of something they put in the meal and and what they even put in it?
For example I go to my moms house for dinner all the time and she makes some delicious meals. However she doesn't measure anything out so how am I supposed to know?

ShandaLeaS

As far as eating at restaurants, many are in the database and if they aren't you just go to their nutritional info and then make an entry to add it in. As far as friends and mom's houses, it'll pretty much be a guessing game unless you have the exact recipe and know it was portioned out correctly.

dondimitri

As far as eating at restaurants, many are in the database and if they aren't you just go to their nutritional info and then make an entry to add it in. As far as friends and mom's houses, it'll pretty much be a guessing game unless you have the exact recipe and know it was portioned out correctly.

That's pretty much what I do. Most of the places I eat have had their nutritional info available online. While at a restaurant if it is not listed in the info they may have it available on a separate sheet. I was at Red Robin and asked if they had any nutritional data and the server brought over a sheet with all the data on it. (Tough to eat at Red Robin; my wife and I split a portion and still ended up with a lot more calories than if we had had lunch at home.)

When eating at a friends/mom's/etc. I try to find something online from a restaurant that sort of matches up or worst case just guess. I think after weighing and measuring stuff out for so long now I can make a pretty good guess.

If you are just dealing with two or three "guesstimate" meals a week I doubt if there is going to be much impact. Especially if you are a conservative guesser.

dawnna76

As far as eating at restaurants, many are in the database and if they aren't you just go to their nutritional info and then make an entry to add it in. As far as friends and mom's houses, it'll pretty much be a guessing game unless you have the exact recipe and know it was portioned out correctly.

That's pretty much what I do. Most of the places I eat have had their nutritional info available online. While at a restaurant if it is not listed in the info they may have it available on a separate sheet. I was at Red Robin and asked if they had any nutritional data and the server brought over a sheet with all the data on it. (Tough to eat at Red Robin; my wife and I split a portion and still ended up with a lot more calories than if we had had lunch at home.)

When eating at a friends/mom's/etc. I try to find something online from a restaurant that sort of matches up or worst case just guess. I think after weighing and measuring stuff out for so long now I can make a pretty good guess.

If you are just dealing with two or three "guesstimate" meals a week I doubt if there is going to be much impact. Especially if you are a conservative guesser.

At red robin my go this to split a 5 piece onion ring with the hubby, have a simply chicken sandwich with mayo on the side so I can add the amount and a side of steamed broccoli. Look it up, it's a very reasonable meal and satisfying

shadowlydarkness

I often have been in this situation.
What I do is I find something in the database that is similar to it, and I can estimate in my head if it is about right or not.

For example I had a sandwich for lunch today at a cafe. No idea what they put on it but in the database I found a 'generic' sandwich for around 500 calories which sounds reasonable for what I had, so I enter that into my journal.

Good luck!

herblackwings39

I usually search the database to see if there's a listing for whatever dish first. If not I just google till I find a recipe that seems like what I've eaten.

ArchangelMJ

I can relate. My favourite local restaurants (pizza, Chinese) don't have a listing of the nutritional info, grr. And it's like, the food's so delicious that it must be high calorie, right? Lol, it's a bummer.