How many people "estimate" their food intake?
liftorgohome
Posts: 25,455 Member
By this I mean I can pick a tuna melt that has 200 calories or one that has 150 calories. Which one is going to be more accurate? Homemade french bread pizza--roll sauce cheese--how many calories? I tend to pick the lowest ones if I have a choice but am I cheating myself?
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I eyeball portion sizes/estimate my calorie intake more now that I'm in maintenance. I have a 5lb maintenance window (which gets up to 10lbs during the winter months lol), so I have more wiggle room now than when I was in my active weight loss phase a few years ago. When I do go into short weight loss phases now (usually spring time), then I really have to get strict with portion sizes/tracking again2
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First I want to know how to make a tuna melt for 150 calories!
If it's something I make myself I don't estimate, I just weigh the ingredients. If I absolutely have to estimate I try to pick a chain restaurant entry because I figure those may be close to accurate since restaurants tend to portion control (but who knows?). I stay away from "homemade" entries in the database because I have noticed a lot of those seem to be way low in calories and I have no clue how anyone figured out what the calorie count is.6 -
If you are trying to lose weight, overestimate calories.
If you are trying to gain weight, underestimate.
In both cases, you should pick a sensible entry. "Cheesecake for 20cals, yes please!"24 -
By this I mean I can pick a tuna melt that has 200 calories or one that has 150 calories. Which one is going to be more accurate? Homemade french bread pizza--roll sauce cheese--how many calories? I tend to pick the lowest ones if I have a choice but am I cheating myself?
A tuna melt meaning a whole sandwich with two slices of bread, tuna fish, Mayo and/or cheese? With some butter or oil on the outside like a grilled cheese (sorry I don't eat tuna fish so I've never made one but this is what I assume it is). Yeah I can't imagine that sandwich being 150-200 cals unless using low cal bread, cheese and butter.
You are cheating yourself by choosing the lowest option if that is the wrong option and it falsely leads you to believe you are in a calorie deficit when you actually aren't. Inaccurate logging is what prompts almost all of the "why am I not losing I'm only eating xx calories" posts here. You don't have to have a food scale to be successful (I didn't use one) but you do have to be realistic and have a good idea of what the basic calorie counts of certain ingredients/foods would be. I highly recommend the food scale though for optimal accuracy and success.11 -
I always estimate my food and use the premade entries. I only count calorie, protein, and water intake.0
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Sometimes I find it helpful to take a look at what's in the sandwich--or other food. As Winogelato said--2 slices of bread, small can of drained tuna, 30g of cheese, 10g butter etc.. and then I add up the calories. This will get you closer to a real number of calories. It takes a little more time. You may wind up weighing stuff at home to verify. Sometimes I do it with pizza. Its always an estimate, but you can get a good idea.4
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So what about restuarant foods that aren't in the food chart? Say "little anthony" pizza. Would you pick little seasors pizza or pizza hut then? As for a tuna melt, whole wheat bread 2 slices, tuna, mayo, cheese and heat it up in an oven....yummy but high in sodium.0
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I always go for the higher option (I'm losing fat) to play it safe.
It's something you learn as you go, accurately calculate what's in what you cook at home and as time goes by you'll get better at estimating what's in meals when eating out.
As said above, it is essential to be realistic. If it's a relatively standard meal but absolutely coated in melted cheese, it's obviously going to be packing a lot more calories than a standard entry.
Personally I try to avoid estimating as much as possible, but it's still better than not bothering in my opinion (which is what I used to do more often than not.)
I'm lucky in that as a large male, my TDEE is fairly high so a couple of hundred calories here or there doesn't significantly affect my progress at the moment, but even so, I'm ONLY consistently successful when I log accurately.
Good luck!5 -
Take apart your "little anthony" pizza. About how big around was it? Look up pizza bases. What toppings were on it? A cup of sauce? About how much cheese? Do each one separately.1
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So what about restuarant foods that aren't in the food chart? Say "little anthony" pizza. Would you pick little seasors pizza or pizza hut then? As for a tuna melt, whole wheat bread 2 slices, tuna, mayo, cheese and heat it up in an oven....yummy but high in sodium.
Yes if a restaurant food isn't in the database I use a reasonable equivalent from a chain place. I don't know little Anthony pizza, but is it like a little Caesars or Pizza Hut? Is it thick crust or thin? Find an entry that has similar toppings or go to the Dominos website and build the pizza you would order or did order from Little Anthony's and see how many calories. That should work for most traditional hand tossed pizzas but certain "styles" like Chicago style (extra deep dish), New York style (thin but large slices) or St Louis style (extremely thin crispy crust but cut into squares) are going to have different calorie counts.3 -
Everybody estimates. Even those who weigh every packaged item to be sure the weight is as stated.
The values you see are based on a typical item. A given chicken breast might be a bit fattier or a bit more pumped up with water than the average.
What you need to do is to use the most honest estimate you can. I don't know your pizzas, but if you've had the other types you mention, do you have a feel for which one your Wee Tony is similar to? You might even be able to think that well, the ingredients are just like X, but it is slightly smaller, therefore I will log 0.9X. Or the opposite!3 -
So what about restuarant foods that aren't in the food chart? Say "little anthony" pizza. Would you pick little seasors pizza or pizza hut then? As for a tuna melt, whole wheat bread 2 slices, tuna, mayo, cheese and heat it up in an oven....yummy but high in sodium.
We have a couple local pizza places that we go to and yeah, I just pick a similar chain place to estimate. One of the places you actually order a whole pizza for each person, and my sister and I dissected it one time and figured it was around 1,500 calories. I've eaten these 2-3 times a year throughout my weight loss/maintenance, and on those days I just eat really low low calories the rest of the day. In the scheme of things it hasn't affected anything.
And watch the mayo on your sandwich-condiments are where you can get in big trouble with calories. I'm still surprised at how high calorie some are, for the small amount you get
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By this I mean I can pick a tuna melt that has 200 calories or one that has 150 calories. Which one is going to be more accurate? Homemade french bread pizza--roll sauce cheese--how many calories? I tend to pick the lowest ones if I have a choice but am I cheating myself?
If something has a barcode I use that, otherwise I eye-ball everything.
I tend to select the mid to higher calorie option, never the lowest, as a means to try and compensate.
I lost weight exactly on schedule, so I must have been doing something right!
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I always estimate. I can guess around calorie content of pretty much everything now ha I lost 20 pounds so I couldn't have been far off!0
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i think the main thing is the tracking of what you eat , you will see the results of it in the long run and know if its working for you . for example i eat at OEC once a week ,, lots of Broc and carrorts and shrimp .. best entry i could find was 550 cals or so .. im so full when i leave there its got to be more and i know if i ate there more than once a week it wouldnt be working for me ..
good luck0 -
A rule of thumb for me when guessing resturaunt meals is count it as u would make it at home then add 200 cals for hidden oil or butter that they most likely add to give it that extra moistness.
I could make a homemade tuna melt baguette for 400 cals cos I would use low fat processed cheese slice that I dont need to measure and skip the mayo. At a restaurant with the mayo and full fat cheese id guess 600, maybe 700 if was a generous sized one. Only the big chain resturaunts have nutritional info on the menus here.0 -
So what about restuarant foods that aren't in the food chart? Say "little anthony" pizza. Would you pick little seasors pizza or pizza hut then? As for a tuna melt, whole wheat bread 2 slices, tuna, mayo, cheese and heat it up in an oven....yummy but high in sodium.
That is what I do for pizza. If it's local I'll try to compare it to a chain and pick the entries from there. I tend to overestimate if I'm trying to lose so I don't short change myself. Also if the slice is a generous cut or something I might log 1.3333 servings or something along those lines.1 -
I tend to guess and go with the higher calorie count.0
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If I have to estimate (restaurant, for example), I look at all of the applicable food entries, throw out (in my mind) the ones that appear to be very high or very low. Then I choose one toward the higher end of what's left.
Overestimating will get you where you want to go. Underestimating will undo your hard work.1 -
If I'm estimating I automatically bump this number up by 20% to account for the margin of error and ensure I'm maintaining my deficit, but I'm currently in deficit.
For example last night we had a pizza party to celebrate our scouts blowing away their goals. I ate 3 pieces and found the closest estimate, then added another piece to ensure I'm not underestimating. I'm also not hungry and I'm hitting my performance goals - if this were different I would be keeping a closer eye on my intake, but this is working for me.1 -
Estimating works for a lot of people, in fact, just writing down what you eat works for a lot of people. I lost 60 lb in my early 30s just tracking what I ate and eating less than I had been before starting the tracking (by tracking I mean basically writing down portions and foods, no calories needed). It kept me honest.
I think logging is more fun and interesting, but if you don't a lot of people can probably manage without it for losing.
For estimating based on entries, I think it makes sense to have a consistent system and then be open to adjusting based on results. If you always take the lowest entry, you are probably underestimating, but if you lose on "1200" and know it's an estimate it doesn't much matter that's it may really be 1500 or 1800 or even 2000. And if you don't lose on "1500" (which could really be 2000 or 2200), and cut back, it doesn't matter that you don't really know the number you are eating.
Same if you always pick the highest version of the dish or a middle version that seems most similar to what you ate or reasonable to you -- just be consistent, watch results, and adjust.
Doing that ended up driving me crazy -- if I was going to log I was going to log as accurately as possible except for an occasional restaurant meal or the like -- but it works for many.0 -
So what about restuarant foods that aren't in the food chart? Say "little anthony" pizza. Would you pick little seasors pizza or pizza hut then? As for a tuna melt, whole wheat bread 2 slices, tuna, mayo, cheese and heat it up in an oven....yummy but high in sodium.
I would use a similar type of pizza. If it's a thinner dry crust, Pizza Hut thin and crispy, a heavier crust, something else.
I size estimate at restaurants if they are not chains with nutrition info. I tend to eat very simple stuff that is easy to break down into individual ingredients. Other than a non chain pizza restaurant, I can't think of any foods that I eat and can't break down. (I don't eat many sauced or cheesed foods or casseroles and definitely not tuna melts.)2 -
There's no way that tuna melt is 150 calories. Just the tuna itself maybe...
I'm trying to lose weight, so I overestimate or at the very least try to be realistic when I estimate. Lying to myself isn't going to do a bit of good.
If the place I'm eating at doesn't publish nutritional information, I try to pick the closet thing from another chain or "pick apart" what I'm eating and just do my best to estimate that way. I know it's not 100%, but what can you do.3 -
If I have to estimate I go for the higher number to be safe and that has worked or I break it down by ingredient if none of the options look right. My grilled cheese the other night had options of 200-400 calories for the sandwich but I knew mine had around 3-4 ounces of cheese so it would have to be higher, 4oz of Jack cheese is about 400 cals without the bread or the butter so in that case I logged the ingredients....it was just over 6001
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By this I mean I can pick a tuna melt that has 200 calories or one that has 150 calories. Which one is going to be more accurate? Homemade french bread pizza--roll sauce cheese--how many calories? I tend to pick the lowest ones if I have a choice but am I cheating myself?
I estimate for the most part. Used to weigh everything and measure when I was on a deficit/doing cardio but now that I lift (and basically got adjusted to eyeing out measurements pretty accurately) I figure if there's a little excess it isn't going to do any harm. Especially now that I'm in a bulk. If I'm doing a full on estimate like the examples you used, I'll choose the highest calorie option just to be safe.1 -
I don't pick other people's "generic" or "homemade" entries in the database because I have no idea what they mean? IS a "tuna melt" one slice of Wonder Bread with a single-serve packet of tuna, a tablespoon of mayo, and a slice of Kraft Single over it? Or is it an inch-thick wedge of challah with a softball-sized dollop of tuna salad and a carpet of cheese?4
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I tend to pick the high entries, when I need to estimate, after looking at some that I think are similar foods (like using chain deep-dish pizza to estimate local-place deep dish). Occasionally I exclude the very highest one from consideration if it seems crazy high.
While I don't stress about estimating when I must, I don't estimate unless I must (at home, I do use a food scale).
Here's why:
I started losing weight while estimating calories, not using MFP. I lost 28 pounds, yay! But then I started to level off in my weight loss. That's when I started using MFP. I found out that I'd been eating hundreds more calories daily than I'd thought. Ooops.
Once I started weighing food, and watching my weight-loss results carefully, I could very accurately predict my loss rate, the delay/gain effect of an over-goal day, and more. It became just a big, fun, science fair project for grown-ups, reducing the stress and emotion in the process.
Also, once you learn to weigh food the most efficient ways, it's less time and less agonizing than worrying over estimates of complete dishes.
Then, when I got to my goal weight, I could just add my loss rate (in calories) to my eating, and have a very good, personalized estimate of maintenance calories.
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The more I weigh and measure at home the better I am at eyeballing when I do have to estimate. Even when you're unsure of a weight you can sort of see what is a half cup or a cup, and then take the ingredients separately and log them. Otherwise yes, you are probably cheating yourself. It's a hard corner to turn, but fudging tracking is so pointless, your diary isn't a puzzle or game that you get any sort of prize for making it look good. A lot the "why am I not losing weight?" posts have faulty tracking as a major issue.2
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Yes, I estimate. I'm trying to measure or weigh more of my food and beverages, but I certainly don't do it all. I've found that more that I do weigh and measure things though the better my estimates have gotten. In many cases my eyeballing something was shockingly off. Still, I figure it is better to have an estimated record of what I ate than no record at all. Usually when estimating I'll try to break a meal down into a component parts (e.g. 2 slices of bread, 2 slices deli ham, 1 slice cheddar cheese) rather than estimate the whole meal. However for restaurant dishes where I really have no clue I'll put in the meal and then error on the side of a higher calorie entry for the dish.2
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I estimate 100% of the time. I haven't used a food scale yet. Like others have said, I choose an entry with more calories that comes from a restaurant and stay away from things like "Mary's amazing tuna melt" type entries. I also tend to not eat the whole thing. If I order a delicious tuna melt and choose an entry for 700 cals, I'll eat 3/4 of it and keep the calories the same to account for a margin on error. Sometimes I end the day hungry and know that I probably ate 525 calories instead of 700 for that meal, but better safe than sorry. :-)0
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