how to track calories when eating out

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lcboone53
lcboone53 Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
Once or twice a week the family eats out. How do you tract the calories in restaurant food?

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  • mistibalch
    mistibalch Posts: 7 Member
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    You can look up most resturants on MFP, and it will show you menu items you can choose from. You will just need to put the resturant name in where you search for food, and if your looking for specific foods there type that beside the name..that's what I always do. Hope this helps.
  • yensidtoon
    yensidtoon Posts: 82 Member
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    Some restaurants have their nutrition information online so I always check that before going out to eat. I use the information to check and see what I want to have then check the nutrition information.

    Also many others have put in restaurant information for specific items. I have found Subway, Chipotle and Red Robin all on here, and each has their nutrition values posted on their websites.
  • keem88
    keem88 Posts: 1,689 Member
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    if you can't find the amounts on the resturant site or mfp, try and log the best you can. keep in mind resturant servings are larger, so if you get chinese for example there will be more than one serving size of rice if you log it. add extra as well for added oils/fats etc. it prolly won't be accurate if you can't find it in the system, especially if it is a smaller local kind of place.
    for instance, i used to go to this awesome vegetarian place all the time when i lived in cincinnati and get their seitan "cheese steak" sandwich. of course, they were not in the database, so i would log a sandwich roll (i always picked the highest cal one to be safe) a serving or two of seitan, log some cooking oil, then log a serving of the peppers and onion that came on it and log the highest cal provolone cheese i could find. not 100% accurate, but it worked. or you can try and just quick add what you think it may be.
    good luck! and maybe try to get the fam to eat out less? much healthier and saves some money, and fun to cook!

    edited to add: maybe try and work around and plan going to places where you know the nutritional information is available, that way you don't have to add. here in ny, many places do post the calorie amounts in the resturants/menus and whatnot. but yeah, try and make suggestions to go to places that you already know what the calorie amount is so it is that much easier.
  • vkmoorthy
    vkmoorthy Posts: 64 Member
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    If I am going out to eat I try to pick restaurants which have nutritional info published. I go thru the menu ahead of time and decide what to order so as to avoid impulse ordering and regretting later
  • kbarnick
    kbarnick Posts: 36
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    I work at a small, locally owned cafe, and eat food their 3-4 times a week. I usually try to find something that is as close to the food I ate as possible. If not, I try to find something from a similar restaurant (I use Panera quite often). But, by cooking food, and logging it, I have come to have an idea of what the calorie count of certain items are, and that has been the biggest help in logging this food.
  • LokiOfAsgard
    LokiOfAsgard Posts: 378 Member
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    I'm pretty sure resturants are required to provide calorie info. If you can find it, ask the manager. I'm pretty sure it's law. At least, in the USA
  • RandiLandCHANGED
    RandiLandCHANGED Posts: 630 Member
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    I suggest wearing an HRM so you can get the most accurate burn possible.

    A heart rate monitor is intended for use during cardio exercise. You don't wear it at other times.

    Correct. Some might argue that if you do not get a cardio burn while eating out, you are doing it wrong.

    :laugh:
  • MB_Positif
    MB_Positif Posts: 8,897 Member
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    I track them with MFP.
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
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    In to learn more about how to properly track these calories...

    ...and to see if I'm doing it right.
  • Crankstr
    Crankstr Posts: 3,958 Member
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    In to learn more about how to properly track these calories...

    ...and to see if I'm doing it right.

    you would know if you weren't doing it right.
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
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    Make sure you eat out vigorously and make it messy so it assesses energy expenditure more accurately.
  • djc315
    djc315 Posts: 585 Member
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    Once or twice a week the family eats out. How do you tract the calories in restaurant food?

    If I can't find the dish in MFP, then I will do my best to add what I see, and then quick add a few hundred calories depending on how it was cooked. If I go to a local pizza place, I typically add from a fast food pizza place because they tend to be more calories and I'd rather be on the high side than low side. If it's a chain restaurant, more than likely it is in MFP already. If it's not, the nutritional information could be found on the chain restaurants website.
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
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    If it's eating out with a group, it seems more like an endurance event. For proper conditioning, you can check out training regimes for Tough Licker-similar to Tough Mudder but slippery.
  • Admiral_Derp
    Admiral_Derp Posts: 866 Member
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    You also have to consider variations like incline, decline, and also whether a clean, jerk, and press is involved. I mean...it happens, and accuracy IS important.
  • deetee24
    deetee24 Posts: 3 Member
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    Hi :)

    There's a lot of great advice on here so far! I just want to add that if you have an iphone, there are apps you can download that have lists of restaurants, along with menu items and each item's nutritional information. One app in paticular that I've recently found is simply called "fast food", it has a huuuuuuuuge list of restaurants that aren't just fast food stops.

    If you don't have an iphone but maybe an android or smartphone of some sort I'm sure similar apps would be available there as well.

    Goodluck!
  • ninabird2004
    ninabird2004 Posts: 1
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    Thanks for the tip on the app! I am downloading it now. I am notorious for eating fast food so this should help me a lot
  • Susan_fessler
    Susan_fessler Posts: 56 Member
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    if you can't find the amounts on the resturant site or mfp, try and log the best you can. keep in mind resturant servings are larger, so if you get chinese for example there will be more than one serving size of rice if you log it. add extra as well for added oils/fats etc. it prolly won't be accurate if you can't find it in the system, especially if it is a smaller local kind of place.
    for instance, i used to go to this awesome vegetarian place all the time when i lived in cincinnati and get their seitan "cheese steak" sandwich. of course, they were not in the database, so i would log a sandwich roll (i always picked the highest cal one to be safe) a serving or two of seitan, log some cooking oil, then log a serving of the peppers and onion that came on it and log the highest cal provolone cheese i could find. not 100% accurate, but it worked. or you can try and just quick add what you think it may be.
    good luck! and maybe try to get the fam to eat out less? much healthier and saves some money, and fun to cook!

    edited to add: maybe try and work around and plan going to places where you know the nutritional information is available, that way you don't have to add. here in ny, many places do post the calorie amounts in the resturants/menus and whatnot. but yeah, try and make suggestions to go to places that you already know what the calorie amount is so it is that much easier.

    Was the awesome place Melt? Because it is amazing
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    If it's a chain type of restauraunt, estimated calorie amounts will be listed on-line. If it's a local join, probably not...just have to come as close as you can. Keep in mind also that acutal calories may be more or less than what it says on-line...I believe they're allowed in the neighborhood of 20% error...it's never going to be exactly XXX calories because you just have some guy or gal back there slapping together your food...when I worked in that industry, we didn't meticulously measure every little ounce of oil or anything...our mission was to get the food to your plate and into your belly expeditiously.

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