Guessing calories or knowing?

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2girlymama
2girlymama Posts: 44
in Food and Nutrition
I'm so new to counting calories that I will often have to guess what I'm entering. How do I know if I'm putting in correctly? For example, getting food at a local restaurant, its not easily available what the nutrional value is. Any advice?
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Replies

  • wickedcricket
    wickedcricket Posts: 1,246 Member
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    don't eat at restaurants, cook at home
  • cmiles23
    cmiles23 Posts: 234 Member
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    I WILL TYPE IN WHATEVER ITEM I ATE AND THEN LOOK AT THEM AND TRY TO GUESTIMATE SOMEWHERE IN MIDDLE OF HIGHEST AND LOWEST
  • adidrea
    adidrea Posts: 275 Member
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    If you're eating out try asking for a nutrition menu. A lot of restaurants have them but you have to ask!
  • Kristy085
    Kristy085 Posts: 65 Member
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    I WILL TYPE IN WHATEVER ITEM I ATE AND THEN LOOK AT THEM AND TRY TO GUESTIMATE SOMEWHERE IN MIDDLE OF HIGHEST AND LOWEST

    That is what I do too...when I go out, I tend to over estimate just to try to get as close as possible for correct calorie counting.
  • rodneyderrick
    rodneyderrick Posts: 483 Member
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    As time goes by, you should start having an idea of what is a serving size. Make sure you buy a food scale, and try to understand what a serving size looks like. Once you have that understanding, life will be much easier.
  • Awkward30
    Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
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    I database search for the highest calorie item that seems accurate to what I ate. I pretty much trust that the restaurant is giving me more calories than necessary to make that dish. If it's simpler than I put in the components and add some butter calories or something
  • ibbray04
    ibbray04 Posts: 227 Member
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    I have not been eating out as much at all since I started this journey, but on the rare occasions when I do eat out, I (like the PP) look at the options available on MFP and choose something in the middle of the road.
  • SarahofTwins
    SarahofTwins Posts: 1,169 Member
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    I usually go to the restaurant's website and see if they have a nutritional menu. Most of them do but the local ones might not. Hope you find the correct numbers :flowerforyou:
  • angiolm
    angiolm Posts: 52
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    Most restaurants carry nutritional guide books in the kitchens...ask them to see theirs when selecting meals.

    I have to do this all the time because of my allergies - I ask for the allergine list for all food ingredients and for the nutritional charts...almost every restaurant will have it - I found the small diners and 'ma & pa' restaurants don't have this but they would be happy to give you the ingredient list if you asked nicely enough.

    Also, if it's a chain or well known restaurant - they have their nutrition guides posted on line. Good luck with this.
  • suse75
    suse75 Posts: 33
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    Most restaurants, the larger chains like red Lobster, have their nutritional value loaded on their websites. If it is a smaller local restaurant type, I try to find something similar at a chain restaurant and add that. I'd rather over esitmate than under :)
  • Nswilk
    Nswilk Posts: 27
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    I go out to eat at restaurants that have little to no nutritional information also. What I try to do is figure out what I am going to get before hand and try to find something similar in the great food database that MFP has. That helps also to know how many calories to plan on and not over eat. If that does not help you can also use the recipe maker on MFP and put all the ingredients that you know of into whatever it is you order and come close that way. You will not be exact, but you will be close.
  • BethanyCee
    BethanyCee Posts: 70
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    I eat at a lot of restaurants and almost none of them are chain places that have websites with nutrional values listed. I normally just pick an item from the database that seems close. They might not have the nutritional value for a random burger joint I went to, but if I just use Applebee's burger with the same toppings, it's probably roughly correct. So far this system has been working for me pretty well!
  • BRANDYLYNETTE
    BRANDYLYNETTE Posts: 192 Member
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    YEs, most restaurants have food allergy lists and nutritional information. You would be surprised at how many restaurants food is already on mfp! Also, rememeber if you cant find it on myfitnesspal...you can log in the food yourself if you make it at home...or seperate ingrediants...etc. I havent had much trouble logging in my food. If you are ahaving trouble with something....sometimes it takes JUST THE RIGHT WORDS to type in. Get on the forums and post HELP...need calorie information....and maybe some of our MFP friends will help you! : ) Best of luck! : )
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    Local (non-chain) restaurants are hard because they rarely have nutritional information. I think the best you can do in those situations is look for something in the database that looks close and go with that. Or just do a quick add calories and use your best guess.
  • Lizmhoughton
    Lizmhoughton Posts: 92 Member
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    I struggle with this too. I had shrimp pad thai lastnight with wonton soup and an egg roll. This place doesn't have their calories listed anywhere, so I just tried to find something similar on here and go with the middle range of what I find. Sometimes I don't even know exactly how many calories I burn. For zumba it could be anywhere from 400-1000, so if it's not that hard of a class I'll put 400. If I do something that is constant and enough to get me breathing heavier and sweat then I think I burn about 10 cal a min. I try to underestimate my exercise if I don't know and then I try to over estimate my calories if I am not sure.

    I think I'm bad at knowing the amounts. I have no idea what 168g of something looks like. Any advice on converting grams to cups or anything?

    Some places have a menu with calories online. Mcdonalds has it to where you could build your own meal to calculate your calories. Qdoba has this option too. It's nice because you can pick where you want to cut back from, like only getting shredded cheese instead of queso, ect. We went to Ihop the other day just because I knew that they had calories on their menu. :)
  • katkins3
    katkins3 Posts: 1,360 Member
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    I go into the MFP database and find a menu item they have that is as close to what I had as possible.
    There is also an AP that! It shows you pictures of food items so you can try to get one that looks like what you had, sorry I can't remember the name.
    Its best to get a good digital food scale. Then when you weigh stuff at home you can practice guessing what an item weighs and see how close you come. After awhile you can get pretty good at evaluating foods even if you are at a friend's house or a party, where you can't bring a scale.
    :smile:
  • SeaChele77
    SeaChele77 Posts: 1,103 Member
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    Just about every fast food/restaurant food is in the database. So type in the restaurant and the meal and you'll probably have a half-dozen choices to choose from - pick one and then over guess how much you ate. I've heard time and time again how people underestimate how much 1c really is!! So if the serving size is 1c and you think you ate about 1c - put in 1.5c into your diary. Start measuring at home and cooking more at home. Soon you will be more assure of how much 1c is and be able to do better eating outside the house. Best results will come from limiting your eating out until you get better at measuring and guesstimating calorie intake!!
  • ShoeGal81
    ShoeGal81 Posts: 29 Member
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    Most of the time if it's not on MFP you can look up foods and ingredients online and calculate your calories based on that. If you go out to eat look up the menu and nutritional facts ahead of time.
  • shelbygeorge29
    shelbygeorge29 Posts: 263 Member
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    FWIW, I very rarely eat at restaurants that have nutrtional information available. I live in a resort town with no chain restaurants, there are easily 30 restaurants within a 5 mile radius of where I live and none provide it.
  • 2girlymama
    2girlymama Posts: 44
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    Yeah, this was a local restaurant and the web site did not have their nutritional info. I emailed them but there has been no response so far.

    I am glad to hear the various advice though! Thanks everyone.

    Yes, we do most of our eating at home and most of it by scratch - especially since I've gotten really gung-ho about losing weight. So, this was just a special outing for us (plus we had a coupon for free food....... couldn't let that go to waste...lol)

    But yes, we don't go out often.

    I like the suggestion of learning what appropriate serving sizes are with the use of food scale. I do want one. Just gotta track one down.

    Any suggestions on a good food scale and where to buy it?

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