Faith in people and machines

We all know CICO is key to everyone’s weight loss goal. I often hear people say scale that show body fat are inaccurate. And fitness machine like treadmill or activity tracker over estimate calories burned.

But it seems like people tend to believe the calories in their food that the restaurant puts up. The portions are cut by machines and cooked by different cook every day. The amount of oil used or how big of a scoop of sides you got all varies.

Why would you believe one but not the other?
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Replies

  • globalc00
    globalc00 Posts: 103 Member
    It just seems like a lot of the "i'm not losing weight post" nobody bring up the fact that if they are eating out, their calorie count probably isn't what they think it is. People usually say, it takes time, fluxuation or the it's not linear.

    If one is overestimating exercise and underestimating calories, and most people want variety in the days.... then the question of how much deficit if you are indeed in one can wildly vary.
  • globalc00
    globalc00 Posts: 103 Member
    @springlering62 No, i wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the person that posted the cookout nutrition table. To have a burger that is 226 calories just seems impossible to me when 2 pieces of white bread is at least 150 calories.
  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,493 Member
    edited November 2020
    globalc00 wrote: »
    @springlering62 No, i wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the person that posted the cookout nutrition table. To have a burger that is 226 calories just seems impossible to me when 2 pieces of white bread is at least 150 calories.

    Mcdonlds hamburger is only 250 calories though. What did they post it in the context of? Did they make it themselves? My burgers I make are always under 220 calories. (I use 90 calorie buns and 110 calorie patties)

    But I agree, restaurant calories are usually a lot higher than stated so I always log 100-300 more than the website says depending on the meal. For example, I used to work at panera and the weight of the estimated amount of 2 slices of bread for the sandwiches on the nutrition facts was always A LOT less than the actual weight of 2 slices of the bread, thus WAY more calories in reality. I would weigh the slices and calculate the calories based on weight. I found my sandwiches on the whole grain bread slices were always 100-200 calories more than "calculated" on the website nutrition facts because of this.

    We also were encouraged to have as much or a little bit over the minimum amount of meat to keep customers happy. (ex if 2oz of chicken on a sandwich, our manager liked it to be at least 2oz, but a little bit more is fine and we always usually did about 2.5oz or customers would complain)
  • globalc00
    globalc00 Posts: 103 Member
    I know there are buns out there that claim 80 calories. However I bought a breadmaker to make my own bread, and using as basic ingridents as possible to make bread, 80 calories would be essentially 1 slice of bread.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,950 Member
    globalc00 wrote: »
    @springlering62 No, i wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the person that posted the cookout nutrition table. To have a burger that is 226 calories just seems impossible to me when 2 pieces of white bread is at least 150 calories.

    They had, as I recall, at least four different sizes of burger, and the 226 calorie one was the smallest. I figured it was a "mini" or slider, for which 226 cals doesn't seem out of line. I was skeptical at first before the I saw the nutrition label, as I was picturing a full-size burger.
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    After logging food on and off all my adult life, starting off with pen✒ and paper 📝, I seem to estimate quite well both food and activities.

    I weight carbs (bread, cereal, pasta) and sometimes cooked food, about enough to drive family crazy (usually I secretely weight my food 🤭 , to avoid nasty comments). I then end up choosing for homemade food whatever seems more plausible to me from the database 🤷‍♀️.

    For a while, I picked online workout videos which had the calorie burn shown/mentioned somewhere. I would log the average burn, because I am at a healthy BMI, but work my butt off and rarely do modifications. I dont trust MFP on HIIT (top low imo) or my other app for tracking activities on hiking (way too high). It's common sense that I use... I am also stubborn enough to not use a fitness watch.

    However, the scale plays tricks on me all the time 🤔. I overeat and the next morning see no change. 🤞 Or workout like crazy and its up. 🤨 Well, in the former case the gain shows a couple of days later and it's there to stay, if I dont get back on track! As for the latter, I learnt that an intense workout can lead to water retention, too. So I get mad, hate the scale 🔨 and myself for snacking too much. Then dust myself off and go back to tracking 📝 and working out 🏋️‍♀️, maybe drink more water and be a bit more careful with my sleep. Consequently, the scale surrenders 😂

    While constantly trying to loose the last 7-10 pounds I have actually maintained and variate within a range of about 18 lbs (because I keep lowering my target weight 🙈). So I must be doing something right 😉 w.r.t. tracking.

    Oh, wait, this thread was not about me... 🤦‍♀️
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    edited November 2020
    @AnnPT77 , I always love your posts! 💐 Now, by throwing in the law of large numbers, you have my eternal admiration 🌻.
  • globalc00
    globalc00 Posts: 103 Member
    edited November 2020

    How many grams in a "slice" of bread? How many grams in any given bun/roll? USDA database thinks a regular bun is 56 g on average, a slider bun in 28 g, and a "roll" is 48 g. Meanwhile, it thinks a "slice" of white bread is 139 g.

    Maybe i'm calculating my bread wrong. I was under the assumption that you add up all your ingridient calories and divide it by your final product. 25g of my bread is 71 calories.
    ingridents are
    381 g White Bread Flour
    9 g olive oil
    33 g unsalted butter
    9 g sugar
    6 g salt
    4 g yeast
    20 g milk powder.
    makes a 1.5 loaf bread which comesout to be 576g.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    globalc00 wrote: »
    We all know CICO is key to everyone’s weight loss goal. I often hear people say scale that show body fat are inaccurate. And fitness machine like treadmill or activity tracker over estimate calories burned.

    But it seems like people tend to believe the calories in their food that the restaurant puts up. The portions are cut by machines and cooked by different cook every day. The amount of oil used or how big of a scoop of sides you got all varies.

    Why would you believe one but not the other?

    Some restaurants are more controlled than others. Even those I do not trust completely. I make it a habit to ask for less oil used in cooking, butter and dressing on the side, etc.

    For me it hasn't mattered. I usually only eat out about once a week and whatever discrepancies there are do not show up in my spreadsheet over a short time span. Over a long time span even if I ate only at home the margin of error will eventually require manual correction.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,033 Member
    edited November 2020
    globalc00 wrote: »

    How many grams in a "slice" of bread? How many grams in any given bun/roll? USDA database thinks a regular bun is 56 g on average, a slider bun in 28 g, and a "roll" is 48 g. Meanwhile, it thinks a "slice" of white bread is 139 g.

    Maybe i'm calculating my bread wrong. I was under the assumption that you add up all your ingridient calories and divide it by your final product. 25g of my bread is 71 calories.
    ingridents are
    381 g White Bread Flour
    9 g olive oil
    33 g unsalted butter
    9 g sugar
    6 g salt
    4 g yeast
    20 g milk powder.
    makes a 1.5 loaf bread which comesout to be 576g.

    Most of the bread I eat has around 280 calories per 100g, so that sounds about right. There are big differences in density though, the same weight can look smaller or bigger depending on how dense it is.

    Hamburger buns, while looking voluminous, are actually fairly light for their volume so might hold less calories than you think.
  • Noreenmarie1234
    Noreenmarie1234 Posts: 7,493 Member
    globalc00 wrote: »

    How many grams in a "slice" of bread? How many grams in any given bun/roll? USDA database thinks a regular bun is 56 g on average, a slider bun in 28 g, and a "roll" is 48 g. Meanwhile, it thinks a "slice" of white bread is 139 g.

    Maybe i'm calculating my bread wrong. I was under the assumption that you add up all your ingridient calories and divide it by your final product. 25g of my bread is 71 calories.
    ingridents are
    381 g White Bread Flour
    9 g olive oil
    33 g unsalted butter
    9 g sugar
    6 g salt
    4 g yeast
    20 g milk powder.
    makes a 1.5 loaf bread which comesout to be 576g.

    Many brands have super low calorie breads. They don't use milk powder, oil, butter, or sugar which are high in calories. That is how they are way less calories than yours.