Does anyone just eat and estimate the calories?
ajfitnix
Posts: 4 Member
Sometimes, I'll count the calories of a meal in my head and estimate the 1200 I'm supposed to have. I'm still seeing progress. Was wondering if others do that too. Instead of always logging it. It seems to take some of the anxiety away.
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The only time I estimate is at a restaurant. I aim for higher calorie entries and call it good.
Apart from that though I need to weigh/log everything to make the scale move. I am very petite and don't have a ton to drop so guessing doesn't work at this stage.6 -
Yes, I estimated the whole time I was losing weight and still just estimate in maintenance (I've maintained for about 8 years now). If you stop seeing progress you may want to consider logging and/or weighing out your food. But if what you're doing is working and you're happy with your progress, there's no need to change anything.16
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Yea I do. I used to track years back so I have pretty decent calorie awareness so now I just go with the flow. I do try to estimate my protein levels... I'll roughly add it in my head per meal/snack ex. "30+20+40+20+40". Sometimes I use the food diary to check calories or protein amounts here and there. I also use other tools to gauge my progress (for me that is satiety, weight trends and visual). But I also have a lot of calories to spend. If you are on only 1200 cals you don't have a lot of flexibility so many people have more success tracking. However if what you are doing is working you can stick with it until it doesn't.4
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Yup, add me to the list who estimates. I also used to track meticulously several years back. Every once in a while I'll log again just to make sure I'm still on track.2
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I do estimate from time to time but I've noticed a strong correlation between estimating and not losing weight. I don't gain weight when I estimate; I just stop losing.
What's weird about it is that I'm a good calorie estimator. More than a few times my wife made a meal and calculated the calories precisely; then we played a game of "guess how many calories are in this plate of food". I have never been more than 10 % off and usually much less. If I guess 700, it's almost definitely in the 630-770 zone and likely to be between 675 and 725.
Nevertheless, there is a very strong linkage for me between "ballparking" calories and not losing weight, so .... something doesn't quite work with ballparking and we continue to count as precisely as possible most of the time.3 -
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This works for me. I've been estimating my calories through my entire weight loss and maintenance journey (maintaining an 80 pound loss for 7 years now).
I keep a food & exercise journal and plan out my meals and give a rough estimate of what I plan on consuming. This is very helpful for me when fitting in treats and higher calorie meals.
Edited to add...I also eat a lot of the same things and rotate. I have a binder full of personal recipes where I break down my meals (macros/calories etc.) I find that helpful too.4 -
I log everything I eat - but I don’t weigh my food. I try to measure food but frequently I estimate. It keeps me going. If I am too strict with myself then I stop when I mess up. If I forget to measure I estimate and move on. It’s better, in my opinion, than not being accountable at all. Or worse, stopping altogether.0
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There are times when I have to estimate a certain food or meal just because I didn't make it and there's nothing in the database but that's about as far as I get off the reservation. I'm still in full measure and log mode...2
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I estimated at first during weight loss (in my head, not using MFP). Starting at 183, I got into the mid-150s that way, and was starting to stall out a little (not stopped), so I decided to join MFP and start logging with more precision. I haven't been sorry (in maintenance at a healthy weight for 4+ years now, now low 130s, still logging most days: Highest-payoff 10 minutes of my day, probably , though that obviously wouldn't be true for everyone.)
I do still estimate restaurant meals and the like, and now, in maintenance, I'll skip logging days that seem more complex (Indian restaurant buffet or potluck meal, for example), because I trust the overall process and can be a little more relaxed with no problem consequences. Part of the benefit of daily logging, for me, is being clear that I'm keeping my nutrition on point, especially protein for me as a vegetarian.
The tradeoffs will be different for everyone. Personally, I don't have any obsessiveness around logging, or anxiety around that or scale weight, so this works well for me: I'm a data geek, and it feels like a fun, productive science fair project with health and vitality as its output, to me. That wouldn't necessarily be true for others. :flowerforyou:5 -
I would love to be free of logging but like another poster shared, I have a tendency to overestimate, even if it’s just by a few hundred calories. Over time that adds up. I finished up a 3 month cut middle of March and have been maintaining until now mostly not tracking, but have a slight jump in weight that doesn’t line up with my cycle or training inflammation so back to tracking I go... sucks but I’ve just had to accept it.1
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I mostly estimate, and I think it works better for me overall.
I just pay attention to the direction of the scale, and if it's not going where I want, then something has to change (eg log more accurately, eat less, estimate higher values). For me, if I go for more accurate, I tend to get a bit hung up on the details, and it just takes over and leaves me feeling miserable about it all. I find estimating gives me a better balance.
That said, I will have the occasional day where I try and weigh & log super accurately - gives me a chance to check my estimates to see if I've let my portions creep up etc.1 -
I find even recording afterwards means you are eating more mindfully and I think that is at the core of healthy weight loss and maintenance4
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I never try to estimate. Though when I was losing weight I had lunch in the office canteen and had to estimate there. The food was mostly Indian and Arabic, and often high in fat. There was nutritional info available, but the numbers seemed widely off. Unless the fluffy and dry white rice really contained a massive amount of fat. I still logged it with this info, sometimes taking a plastic cup with what I would call a serving size to my desk to weigh it. There I also learned that portion creep is totally real: What I thought was a similarly full service spoon of rice for example became more in a course of just a few days. So I always tried to get food from the top of the tray with more veggies or meat and less sauce.3
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I dont just estimate my overall calories - but I do take a loose approach to logging and not measure everything accurately either - and law of averages evens out.
There is a spectrum between a) total guesswork and b) weighing every crumb of everything.
if either extreme works for you - that's good.
I am somewhere in the middle
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I used to weigh everything on my food scale when I was really focusing on weight loss. After losing weight and now being in maintenance, I’m not as strict. Plus having used a scale for so long I can eyeball portions really well. Once in a while I’ll eat like crap for a few days and to get “locked back in” I’ll use the food scale, but not too often. And I TOTALLY agree with you about the anxiety part! 😜0
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I round up calories on my go to foods and total them from there. But I do weigh and measure as needed.0
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it’s just impossible to measure everything if you are the type who eats out most of the time. a muffin in one place is going to be different from a muffin in another and who the heck carries a weighing scale around with them on the go? i mean, kudos to the person who carries around a packed lunch everyday but i would rather someone who’s a better cook than i am prepare me a delicious hot lunch 😂 i estimate all the time and exercise enough that i have a little wiggle room for bad estimation. so far, it’s all good 😎0
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I write it down every single day. It will help to do so. That way you know what you are eating at the same time losing weight. You can switch to different low calories food if you dislike eating same thing over and over again. Eating same food can cause mood swing. And it is best idea to write it up. Eat something that make you happy and full. Good Luck.0
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I maintained for awhile doing that, and then the weight started creeping back on. I think it's hard to estimate because even just 100-200 calories every day really adds up over time. Thankfully I don't really mind logging. I do estimate when I go to restaurants. I'm bummed when they don't have calorie info available, but I'm not going to let that stop me from going out to eat. Same thing for potluck type situations (if we ever have those again!)1
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only in restaurants or if I'm visiting someone for a meal, or if it's something like lettuce, I've also stopped weighing packaged food if I'd previously weighed it a few times and it was within a few g of what it was supposed to weigh1
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During non-quarantine times I eat out probably 6 times a week, so learning to make estimations is a big part of the game for me. Even at home, I only weigh very calorie-dense foods like nuts, and occasionally I make some ”check-up” weigh-ins for frequently eaten foods. On top of that, I have measured things like the volume of my favorite mug, so I know my morning orange juice is actually 2,2 deciliters instead of 2, that 10% difference every single morning would add up.
At home I usually estimate based on things like ”my husband and I eat three dinners from one bag of this pasta, so it’s 1/6 of the full bag for one meal”, so I base things on package size. I know I’ll probably have to move to tighter logging when there’s less to lose, but so far things have been working like this.0 -
I estimated for a long time and I lost nearly all of my weight doing that. When it came time to maintain, I found I was still losing weight and my hair even started falling out, I had zero energy, etc.
I started measuring and low and behold, I was overestimating. By a lot. I was way under eating and didn't even realize it.
Now I measure meats with a food scale. Veggies and fruits I usually just estimate still. Everything else is a measuring cup. There are always gonna be people who are super religious about their tracking and will advocate that weighing everything is the only way to do it. It's definitely more accurate, but you have to find that balance that works best for you.2 -
5 years ago I lost 90lbs in a year by weighing, measuring and counting everything. I thought "hey, I'm pretty good at this, I can just estimate from now on!" Yeah, so I gained 50 lbs back and now have to work that much harder to get back to where I was, never mind getting to my goal! So please don't do it, just stick with the plan and enter your foods. It takes time, but it's worth it!
I just started to get back on measuring/weighting/entering 2 months ago and I'm down from 232 to 215.4 -
emalethmoon wrote: »5 years ago I lost 90lbs in a year by weighing, measuring and counting everything. I thought "hey, I'm pretty good at this, I can just estimate from now on!" Yeah, so I gained 50 lbs back and now have to work that much harder to get back to where I was, never mind getting to my goal! So please don't do it, just stick with the plan and enter your foods. It takes time, but it's worth it!
I just started to get back on measuring/weighting/entering 2 months ago and I'm down from 232 to 215.
This is my experience too, I maintained for a few years and then lack of weighing and logging slipped in and I’ve put back on half my loss. It’s frustrating to move back from my level of smugness3 -
If I go out, I estimate. But I estimate based on known quantities. Ie, if I have a pastry at a no-name local bakery, I'll correlate it roughly to a similar pastry at Panera Bread. It might be more, it might be less, but it'll be roughly equivalent.
I use my food scale on food I know I could overeat (Tostadas lime chips, yum yum, or granola; interestingly, I found that I always charge a full serving of peanut butter, but turns out I only use about half that naturally), but I don't live and die by the food scale either. Some weeks I go down, some weeks I go up, but overall, I'm down 100lbs. If I notice an upward trend, I tighten up my logging, but in general, I figure that I will be about +/-20% off any given week. I could be "done" by now if I were less lazy, but here I am. I am not going to change me, so I've found a way to make me work for me!
I don't particularly want to log the rest of my life (I have zero emotional attachment to logging, I am just that lazy XD), but I don't want the weight to come back even more than I don't want to log. So when I'm "done"? Who knows. I have a tendency to either undereat (anxiety/emotions steal appetite) or overeat (um, chips, yum?!) my calorie targets so... who knows. I might be "roughly" logging the rest of my life, but eh.
Find what works for you and gives you the results you want!1
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