Potluck dinners?!

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mamabear1114
mamabear1114 Posts: 140 Member
in Food and Nutrition
How do you count calories for a potluck dinner with family without looking crazy? I have reservations about whipping out the scale to measure my food in front of my in laws, and of course I wouldn’t know what was put in there anyway. Any suggestions?

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  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
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    Memory.

    Or take a picture of your plate.
  • DebLaBounty
    DebLaBounty Posts: 1,172 Member
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    Take a low calorie item you really enjoy eating as your potluck contribution. Be sure to make plenty. Eat a lot of that and just small taste portions of what the other people brought.
  • koslowkj
    koslowkj Posts: 188 Member
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    You have five options (that I can think of anyway):

    1. Bring your scale and measure anyway.
    2. Estimate portion sizes and find a similar sounding entry in MFP. For this, use the middle to high calorie entries so as to not underestimate.
    3. Deconstruct and log individual ingredients for how much you think you ate. Add a few extra calories in there for things like butter or oil you could have missed.
    4. Use the quick add feature to put in roughly how many calories you ate using your best estimate. Least accurate, but also the least amount of work.
    5. Ignore logging for the pot luck. Probably not the best option for you considering you're asking the question. ;)

    Enjoy your dinner!
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,090 Member
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    I would go for option 2, combined with bring something low calorie from home to share, and to make up most of your meal - log would look something like green salad ( supplied by you ) 300g, shepherds pie 100g, tuna mornay 100g, chicken curry 100g.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    have a small amount of everything. try to estimate it as best you can in your head. have a maintenance calorie day if you need to.

    dont sweat the small stuff.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I eyeball it.
  • kellyhumphrey
    kellyhumphrey Posts: 16 Member
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    I've struggled with this when at work potlucks. I usually do a combination of what koslowkj recommended. Generally speaking, I can find something in the food diary that is very similar to what I'm eating. I try to stick with foods that are more easily logged, like the veggie trays and whatnot, and then eat some of the other stuff that's harder to count. I deconstruct the ingredients if I get stuck... having something counted is better than nothing, even if it ends up slightly off.

    Also, I don't care about looking crazy, so... lol
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,987 Member
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    You can also ask the person who made it for the recipe. That's a compliment for them (assuming you ask in a way that indicates that you like it), and helpful for you to log it more accurately.

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