What do you do when you dont know how many calories is in so

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timeforme23
timeforme23 Posts: 461
in Food and Nutrition
Example: My mom brought home a sandwhich from Ralphs deli for dinner. Wheat bread, turkey, cheese, lettuce, avocado. I dont know what kind of bread, meat, and cheese was used! Do you usually eye ball it? I was thinking 550-600 because its a little big and does have avocado. And even if you do eyeball it, how would log it?! Lol sorry I realize thats a ton of questions at once.

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  • _eislek_
    _eislek_ Posts: 198 Member
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    I usually just try to add each ingredient by itself and guesstimate.
  • mielikkibz
    mielikkibz Posts: 552 Member
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    Ditto what Kcantrell does. . .I try NOT to eat at places like that, but if I do, I put it in the dairy piece by piece, overestimatnig more than underestimating
  • MB_Positif
    MB_Positif Posts: 8,897 Member
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    I agree with the last comment...sometimes you just have to break it down by ingredient. Obviously you can't be sure what type of bread, etc., but you can at least get a calorie amount for whole grain bread or something like that...
  • Crystal817
    Crystal817 Posts: 2,021 Member
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    I usually just try to add each ingredient by itself and guesstimate.

    This, or you can just look up something like "Turkey deli sandwhich" and choose one that's close to what you had.
  • PoleBoy
    PoleBoy Posts: 255 Member
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    I don't eat it.

    If I'm being polite I'll chew it a bit, but cough it into my napkin.

    I don't recommend this though, I'd suggest guestimating as best you can. (I have one chocolate a day, I have no information about it at all, so I guess as being a rum truffle, pure chocolate, a praline, or a filled chocolate - depending which it most closely resembles - I do, however, weigh it to the nearest 10th of a gram, and live with the fact I might be as much as 20 calories out. I'm hoping to stretch myself, but 20 calories is my limit at the moment
  • bootblackblast
    bootblackblast Posts: 4
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    Sometimes you can enter ralph's deli and see what all pops up. I know that for some of our grocery stores those items have already been added by others. You can also always add the deli meats, bread, and condiments individually while guesstimating. I always guesstimate high.
  • lizzycomp
    lizzycomp Posts: 64
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    I agree with everyone's take on "guesstimating". This is a rare occasion and what's important is that you log it. It sets you up for a good habit to success. Good luck!
  • nextrightthing
    nextrightthing Posts: 408 Member
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    I was curious if Ralph's would come up and it did. I have no idea where that deli is, nor do I have one accessible to me but, I am amazed at all of the things you can put into your food tracker and have them come up.
  • jaymark
    jaymark Posts: 18 Member
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    I do an estimate ingredient by ingredient. I don't beat my self up too much about it. I stay away from the stuff I know has a ton of fat and calories. If I am going out I exercise like a mad man to build up calories I can eat. It seems to be working.
  • ppiinnkkmmoonn
    ppiinnkkmmoonn Posts: 418
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    i dont eat it but never thought about adding the stuff in it to guessable but i still be unsure hum
  • kristydi
    kristydi Posts: 781 Member
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    Some of my favorite places to eat are small local places that don't have nutrition data available. I guesstimate like the others usually by adding each ingredient individually.

    If it's something I might eat fairly often, I have no problem asking the people there about the food. The owners of my favorite place (an amazing independent bagel place/bakery) are really nice and I now know that they use all boar's head meats and cheeses and that most of their sandwiches have between 4 and 6 oz of meat on them. Since the meat and the cheese are the biggest calorie thing on the sandwich it makes it easier to guesstimate. They also told me that the sides are all in 4 oz containers.
  • InMyJeans
    InMyJeans Posts: 87 Member
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    I either overguesstimate or enter in something thats similar already in the database. I do try to make sure I know the calories before I eat most things, but everything isn't always in the database.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    I often have this problem - I'm going to another conference next week so I will be eating conference food for four days, which will be sandwiches, wraps, cookies etc (though i will try to stick to one cookie a day and take an apple for other times!).
    I usually look up the database for the item and pick something that seems right to me (I know that 2 slices of regular bread is going to be 140 cals or more, the turkey could be up to 100 cals, salad not so much, extra for butter, mayo etc - so I'd look for something that was around 400ish probably).
  • MyNameIsNotBob
    MyNameIsNotBob Posts: 565 Member
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    I'll either try to enter the ingredients individually, or I'll search for that food item and pick one that seems average. For example, I eat at my favorite Mexican place about once a week. It's not in the database, so I'll just search for "fajitas" or "bean burrito" or whatever. If there's one that's 500 cal. and another that's 1000, I might pick the entry that's around 750. It's not an exact science, and I try to be really mindful of everything else I eat that day just in case I underestimated.

    There are probably lots of entries for turkey sandwich.
  • suzycreamcheese
    suzycreamcheese Posts: 1,766 Member
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    itd depend what time of day it was. I might save it for a proper meal and try not to think about it too much
  • verysmallrocks
    verysmallrocks Posts: 9
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    I just guess on the amounts of the ingredients too, when possible... just be super careful about sneaky things like mayo or if something was cooked in oil or whatever. Ninja calories. :) I somehow used to have the idea that condiments didn't really count... and boy do they...!
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    I pick something close, or guess, and I don't stress out about it!
  • fteale
    fteale Posts: 5,310 Member
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    I estimate and don't stress about it! I am pretty much always 200 cals under my daily limit anyway, so I have plenty of room for error.

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