College dilemma: Uncertain calorie counts

Being able to accurately measure your food is obviously the most efficient way to go. However, there is an underlying idea that makes measurements work, healthy food choices.

When you are at the buffet you know what food is healthy and what food is packed with calories. They say the best way to lose weight is a lifestyle change for many reasons. First, you aren't going to spend the rest of your life counting calories. What you need to do is make healthy choices in general.

You need to be the guy that takes heaping portions of veggies and small portions of unhealthy carbs.

Don't expect to eat half a pizza, pasta, and white rice while still losing weight. Eat when you are hungry. Just choose healthy food.

Here are a few tips.

1. Try to see if the dining hall has a calendar showing the meals they will serve. Many dining halls plan their meals out at least a month in advance and should have no problem providing that information.

2. Create a meal plan. With the dining hall calendar and food you can prepare in your microwave, prepare a meal plan that includes healthy choices and estimated portion sizes. You may need to create your own kind of measurements. One scoop of X or a quarter of your plate of Y. Make sure the majority of your plate is filled with veggies and other healthy choices.

3. Stick to your meal plan for a couple weeks and track your progress. Not losing weight? Adjust your meal plan.

You can definitely make this work. My number one piece of advice is be aware of what you are eating. You know healthy foods from unhealthy foods.

Exercise is also going to be an important consideration. Get on a decent routine in the gym or walk a couple miles 5 days a week.

Is it possible you could buy fresh fruit like apples, oranges, or bananas and take them with you to the dining hall? Eat one before your dining hall meal and down a glass of water or two before your meal... That way, even if you're uncertain about the calories in the pre-prepared food, you'll fill up your stomach a bit so you end up eating less of that food.

I've successfully lost weight in the past while eating in residence quite frequently (not 16 meals a week, but often enough to pick up some tricks). My advice would be, work out from the items available which ones it doesn't really matter about and load up on those; and then be cautious about the others. And the 'buffet-style' servery works in your favour, here! You have a lot of control over what you serve yourself, and can go for 'safe' options as the basis of your meal, with smaller amounts of the things that are a bit more of a gamble.

What I mean is this: the calories in some foods (particularly certain vegetables and salad items) are so insignificant that it doesn't make a huge amount of difference how accurate you are in measuring them. Things like lettuce, leafy green vegetables, cucumber, and so on you can eat in pretty much infinite quantities without having to worry. Most vegetables (excluding starchy things like potatoes) will be not too much to worry about, provided they aren't served drenched in butter or whatever. So, make those the foundation of your meal. Have plenty, and log them with your best estimate of how much you've had.

Relatively un-messed-around-with sources of protein are also your friends, here. Assuming you aren't vegetarian, then if there are choices that allow you to have a piece of meat or fish, then it's a good choice - it'll fill you up, and you'll be able to log it fairly accurately, too. So, a meal of something like a big bowl of salad plus a chicken breast and some vegetables, say, would be a good choice and you could estimate it reasonably well.

Things to be more cautious about are those that might or might not (or definitely will) contain a lot more calories - stuff where you have no idea what recipe they've used to make it so it could be anywhere on a spectrum from pretty OK to eyewateringly calorific, and you won't know which. Like, pies, pizza, pasta, cake, that kind of stuff. You don't need to completely avoid these items - have them when you want them, but go for a smallish portion; and it's worth erring on the side of assuming they're at the 'eek!' end of the spectrum, and logging them accordingly. Just search the database for similar foods, and pick something that sounds similar to log it as (but don't be tempted to go for the one that logs as really low in calories; assume it's the one that's higher!).

Do this for a couple of weeks, and then see how it's going. If you're losing about what MFP/your previous experience indicates would be about right, carry on. If you're losing more or less, adjust accordingly. But if you stick mainly to choices you know are likely to be healthy ones, and keep logging as best you can and exercising, you'll do fine. Good luck!

Does anyone have advice for how to use MFP or lose weight under such conditions? I cannot continue on as I am, and feel a little hopeless at the moment.

I'd broadly agree with your first response here, given limited information about calories you need to be thinking about healthy/ appropriate choices. Given that you have been measuring you're reasonably empowered to make some judgements about portion sizes and food options. I appreciate that you may lack confidence though.

Relating this to my own experience, I stay in hotels two to three nights a week, previously it was four nights every week. What using MFP for logging has given me is a more thoughtful approach to what choices I make. The other point that I use is underscoring, that helps account for the lower level of accuracy around my intake. As you have quite a lot to lose you can afford to be a bit rougher around that underscoring. I didn't have a huge amount to lose so it's a bit crude for me. I have to work with what I've got.

An observation I'd make about your CV work is that it's not a huge amount, so if you're compensating for it and "eating back" you may be compounding things a little. I'd suggest either not eating back, eating back only a portion or ramping up your intensity/ duration. If you're gaining then the balance is wrong, you're consuming more energy than you're expending.

I'm assuming that you're not on any kind of special diet balance so you've got quite a bit of flexibility here. By thinking through my choices I'll make decisions around a lighter dinner, or smooth calories over a couple of days if I make a choice to eat over goal on one day, so go under afterwards.

Hope some of that is useful.

You've gotten some great advice. If you can get a list of what is being made, perhaps you can also look up how to make the recipes yourself and their calorie info so you have some idea.

Even if it's not posting the dining hall may still have calorie information. Can you email the company asking? And if they don't you can always request that they do-maybe even post a thing in the campus gym asking others to email and request this. Often contracts are often under renegotiation and the schools ask students what they want-if you see that happening put in you'd like the nutritional information.

I think you've gotten a lot of great advice, but I particularly like the advice to eat items where the estimation error doesn't matter as a base. 4 cups of salad vs. 6 cups, no big deal. Obviously, you cannot eat on salad alone, but it does provide a start. I recommend estimating everything, even though it may not be accurate. But to improve the estimation process, I suggest the following.

Why don't you try to figure out what volume various dishes are in the canteen? By dishes, I mean the actual tableware. For example, if you can determine that the soup bowl holds 10 oz, that puts some limit on the quantity of food in the bowl. Since your campus is concerned about eating disorders, they probably won't tell you, so bring a bottle of water with a known quantity of water, and just fill bowls and mugs once to figure out what they hold. Yeah, you may look weird on "measuring day" and people may think you are odd(*) if you serve yourself pasta in a coffee cup, but it is less weird that using measuring cups or a food scale daily. I think there should be a selection of dishes... small plate or bowls for salad (which you should use for high calorie foods), small glasses or cups for coffee and tea (also useful for you for high calorie food), large cups for juice/soda/water (probably should be used only for water), large dinner plates (perfect for salad or steamed veggies). At my college, some of the plates and cups were HUGE. If you served yourself a full plate or glass of certain items, you'd probably consume 2,000 calories.

(*) I also think that anyone who does see you measuring things will realize that you are trying to be healthy, and won't be judge-y, though I do understand your concern about fitting in. As long as you aren't making a big deal of things, I think your classmates will roll with it.

Good luck!

You've already gotten great advice. I'm also 20 years old and in college! However dorms have a mini kitchen and my apartment has a full size kitchen in it. When I ate at the dining hall freshman year, I would just estimate calories, and be aware not to eat bad stuff. I stuck mostly to salad, grilled chicken, deli counter, and fruit. You can do this! Plenty people lose weight in college. We can do this