How do you track food that’s untrackable?
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ochoa_ml
Posts: 10 Member
I decided to have some mexican food from a local mom and pop shop and I want to track it. How do you track food that doesn’t provide a nutrition label? And if you estimate it, how do you know you’re factoring it in correctly so that you stay within your caloric needs?
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Replies
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Find a similar item and use that calorie count.5
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Do you find your estimates slow your weightloss down as opposed to if you stuck with foods you had nutritional labels for, thus having a better calorie approximation?0
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Do you find your estimates slow your weightloss down as opposed to if you stuck with foods you had nutritional labels for, thus having a better calorie approximation?
Nope. It didn't for weight loss and it works fine for maintenance but it only once a week or so that I have to estimate anyway. Personally I have been more likely to overestimate than underestimate those calories anyway.4 -
The longer you are in this, you will be more confident in your "guesstimates". That, and making sure to manage the impulse over that chip basket will serve you well. Don't forget that you can take some of your main dish home, to enjoy later. Make sure you get a good workout in that day, if you can. Over the week, it should make very little difference.6
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Just do the best you can based on what's already in the databases here. And don't sweat it. If you're off your calories every now and then, it will be okay.4
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midlomel1971 wrote: »Just do the best you can based on what's already in the databases here. And don't sweat it. If you're off your calories every now and then, it will be okay.
I agree. Sometimes when I know that I have to estimate calories and macros I do a 24 hour fast before eating out. I don't do this often, but psychologically it helps me to keep things in perspective and not panic!1 -
Make your best guess.2
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Do you find your estimates slow your weightloss down as opposed to if you stuck with foods you had nutritional labels for, thus having a better calorie approximation?
It would be a little sad to restrict the enjoyment of good food just because you have to guess the cals. Don't make a hard job even harder would be my advice.
Think how many times and by what margin of error before it will show up as fat not lost.
Let's say you under-estimate by 350 for a meal, you are going to have to do that ten times to truly have a very small impact on your fat loss.
Try to elongate your view, what happens in a day is trivial - long term habits are what's important.
Quick Add calories for those meals either where information is unavailable or simply too onerous to estimate accurately made no difference to my weight trend.
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I would add this context: maintaining is a long game. I just did a quick calculation. I've been maintaining my weight loss for over 1,500 days now. Within that length of time, any individual estimate I do on a particular day is going to average out into meaninglessness. Now if rough estimates are a frequent part of my logging, I may indeed find over time that it causes some discrepancies for me (but I would see that in observing my real life weight trend and I'd be able to make adjustments). Since I focus on logging accurately the majority of the time, the times when I've had to make truly wild guesses haven't impacted me at all.4
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Do you find your estimates slow your weightloss down as opposed to if you stuck with foods you had nutritional labels for, thus having a better calorie approximation?
Your life doesn't stop because you have chosen to lose weight. Your system of logging and accountability has to be flexible and that may include days where you eat over your calorie goal.
Weight loss, maintain, and gain comes down to a mathematical formula called CICO. Calories in - Calories Out.
However, there is no way for you to determine the exact number of calories you eat each day or burn each day. All we can do is work with averages and estimates. 2 pieces of chicken that weigh the same amount will not have the same exact calories. Unless you are in a coma it is highly unlikely that you would have two consecutive days with the same calorie burn.
So what you do is be as precise as possible most of the time and understand that your imprecise moments will balance out to near insignificance as long as they do not occur too often and you are at least in the ballpark of the correct calorie count.
I think I have logged every single piece of pizza I have ever eaten as Dominos and I have lost weight a hair ahead of my logged calories for most of my entire first losing phase. I didn't start tracking it in a spreadsheet right away so there is a period of time I do not know how it matched up.6 -
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I only eat one or two meals out per week, and I just make it a rule that when I eat out, anything goes. Obviously, I still try to ballpark protein for the day. But I just enjoy the meal and get back on track for the other meals that I measure. There's no sense going nuts over trying to count meals from restaurants IMO
The problem with this is that it may work for you but will not work for just anyone. A smaller daily deficit coupled with a lowish maintenance calorie amount could mean wiping out or even surpassing the entire week's deficit in a single meal.
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I only eat one or two meals out per week, and I just make it a rule that when I eat out, anything goes. Obviously, I still try to ballpark protein for the day. But I just enjoy the meal and get back on track for the other meals that I measure. There's no sense going nuts over trying to count meals from restaurants IMO
The problem with this is that it may work for you but will not work for just anyone. A smaller daily deficit coupled with a lowish maintenance calorie amount could mean wiping out or even surpassing the entire week's deficit in a single meal.
Yes, 1-2 "anything goes" meals for me a week would almost certainly result in weight gain. The whole reason I had excess weight is that my "anything goes" can be an absolutely astonishing amount of calories and restaurants are really good at crafting calorie-dense dishes anyway.
I know not everyone was overweight for the same reasons, but this would be a complete disaster for me. My "anything goes" can be epic!7 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I only eat one or two meals out per week, and I just make it a rule that when I eat out, anything goes. Obviously, I still try to ballpark protein for the day. But I just enjoy the meal and get back on track for the other meals that I measure. There's no sense going nuts over trying to count meals from restaurants IMO
The problem with this is that it may work for you but will not work for just anyone. A smaller daily deficit coupled with a lowish maintenance calorie amount could mean wiping out or even surpassing the entire week's deficit in a single meal.
Yes, 1-2 "anything goes" meals for me a week would almost certainly result in weight gain. The whole reason I had excess weight is that my "anything goes" can be an absolutely astonishing amount of calories and restaurants are really good at crafting calorie-dense dishes anyway.
I know not everyone was overweight for the same reasons, but this would be a complete disaster for me. My "anything goes" can be epic!
I would not have as easy of a time doubling my maintenance calories now that they have increased so much from activity but last year this time I could have done that in a single meal no problem WITHOUT liquid calories.1 -
I decided to have some mexican food from a local mom and pop shop and I want to track it. How do you track food that doesn’t provide a nutrition label? And if you estimate it, how do you know you’re factoring it in correctly so that you stay within your caloric needs?
Try to eat small amount of it ...especially if it has fats within coz it most calorie dense components on earth0 -
Just estimate using a similar item in the data base and estimate the weight.
No need to do 24 hour fasts beforehand or Big work outs to compensate.
Over time, if you weight is going down, up or same as you want it to, then what you are doing is working.
If it isn't, then either tighten your logging or increase your estimation eg add, say 20% to whatever weight you guessed or quick add another, say, 500 calories when you eat out.
Over time,tweak system to whatever result in weight loss /gain/same you want.2 -
I find something similar and log it. I've been doing it a long time. It evens out.2
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I only eat one or two meals out per week, and I just make it a rule that when I eat out, anything goes. Obviously, I still try to ballpark protein for the day. But I just enjoy the meal and get back on track for the other meals that I measure. There's no sense going nuts over trying to count meals from restaurants IMO
By "anything goes," does that mean you don't log it? I weigh everything I can, and that helps me estimate what I eat when I don't make it. I still log it, and if I go over for the day -- ok, no problem. I still try to catch up for the week to stay in maintenance.
The exceptions are river trips and dive trips. I have a "recipe" called Rafter Rations and one called Diver Rations. They are a mix of fat, protein, and carbs in a reasonable combination to equal a set number of calories that is WAY over my normal day. I don't include oat sodas, but generally have a ration of those because there's no resupply along the way. I also log my activity, or at least estimate how long I'm rowing. For diving, I have a computer to tell me. But it doesn't tell me how many times I climb the ladder up to the sun deck or down to the bunk deck. For rowing, it doesn't estimate how many times I run up/down the beach to/from the boat or my hiking. I can sort of estimate that.
But for just going out to eat? There's lots in the database that might be close. I look over a few entries and make an educated guess which one is likely to fit. Over time (I have been maintaining in a +/- four or five pound range since mid-2018), I have got better at estimating. This doesn't mean I can stop weighing on a normal basis. I bet a bagel that if I quit weighing, my power of estimating would decrease, my portion size would increase, and I would have to reset my goal from maintaining to losing. I don't want that.
So - @ochoa_ml - Keep measuring, weighing, and logging all you can, and give yourself permission to estimate when you need to!2
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