How good are you at guessing calories?

smoofinator
smoofinator Posts: 635 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I came across this little quiz I thought might be fun for you guys to see how accurate your guesses are at normal calorie content. I was pretty close on most (within 100 cals) thanks to MFP, but I actually overestimated a few, which makes me think I'm not too terrible at guessing because of all the time I've spent here!

https://morningconsult.com/2018/07/18/americans-actually-pretty-good-counting-calories/

Replies

  • kcn2bluesky
    kcn2bluesky Posts: 187 Member
    Fun! I came close on a few items, but was far enough off on many others that I'm thankful for my food scale and that we only eat out one meal a week :lol:
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    I'm actually super terrible at random restaurant items, some I was close but I actually overestimated by almost double most items, I always assume at least 800 cals for most things especially with lots of meat and cheese!
  • Sharon_C
    Sharon_C Posts: 2,132 Member
    I call BS. I can accurately eyeball serving sizes because I've been weighing my food for so long. This does not tell you how much the food weighs (like, seriously, how much ice cream was in that sundae?) and I found the calories way lower than reality
  • smoofinator
    smoofinator Posts: 635 Member
    Sharon_C wrote: »
    I call BS. I can accurately eyeball serving sizes because I've been weighing my food for so long. This does not tell you how much the food weighs (like, seriously, how much ice cream was in that sundae?) and I found the calories way lower than reality

    I don't think it's meant to be super serious. Just a very "fuzzy," general representation. The sundae did seem off, but I could see most of the other foods being sort of close-ish. I think it's just a way of getting the article's point across.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    Not bad... I have been tracking for a couple years which helps. Though, too much left to preparation.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I was pretty close with most
  • asliceofjackie
    asliceofjackie Posts: 112 Member
    The fact that they say the 'taco bowl' is much higher than the double decker hamburger clearly shows that they're trying to throw people off. They must've added some really calorie dense sauces to that taco bowl to make it contain almost 1000 kcal.
  • runnermom419
    runnermom419 Posts: 366 Member
    asliceofjackie wrote: »
    The fact that they say the 'taco bowl' is much higher than the double decker hamburger clearly shows that they're trying to throw people off. They must've added some really calorie dense sauces to that taco bowl to make it contain almost 1000 kcal.

    Deep frying a XL tortilla shell will add a ton of calories to anything. I knew when that picture popped up that it was almost 1K calories.

    I actually overestimated on most everything. Which isn't a bad thing. I'd rather overestimate the calories I'm eating and underestimate what I'm burning.
  • PapillonNoire
    PapillonNoire Posts: 76 Member
    I was way over on almost everything. I feel like I have a pretty good sense of actual calories in real life since I've been maintaining for 7 years and rarely log or measure. I suspect if the foods depicted were prepared by me (or the restaurants I frequent) they would have higher calories than listed in the quiz.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Before I logged it, I guessed today's lunch was between 400 and 500 calories and it came in at 447.
  • asliceofjackie
    asliceofjackie Posts: 112 Member
    runnermom419 wrote: »
    Deep frying a XL tortilla shell will add a ton of calories to anything. I knew when that picture popped up that it was almost 1K calories.

    I actually overestimated on most everything. Which isn't a bad thing. I'd rather overestimate the calories I'm eating and underestimate what I'm burning.

    To me it wasn't clear that there was a deep fried tortilla, I thought it was just one of those standard heat dried ones. Just goes to show how hard it can be to tell from images, lol :tongue:
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    asliceofjackie wrote: »
    The fact that they say the 'taco bowl' is much higher than the double decker hamburger clearly shows that they're trying to throw people off. They must've added some really calorie dense sauces to that taco bowl to make it contain almost 1000 kcal.

    This is often reality when it comes to restaurant meals though. The double decker hamburger seemed pretty clearly to be a mimic of a big mac (540 calories). Many of their salads have more calories than that. If you go to a sit down restaurant and get some version of salad/bowl, it's not uncommon to find salads that are over 1000 calories.

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