How to track when meals are provided for me

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sollyn23l2
sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,621 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So... I've been having an issue maybe some of you can give me some advice on. I work for a local headstart... which means 4 days a week I am expected to eat breakfast and lunch with the students... the same meal they eat is provided for me. So, I know what I'm eating, but not exactly what's in it or how much I'm eating.. and it's not as though I can whip out a food scale and log in the middle of work. Any ideas on how to attempt to keep track of my calories while doing this? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

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  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
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    There are entries for institutional food (Sodexo, Aramark, etc) in the database. How accurate those are is anyone's guess, but that would be my approach if they're cooking the food on-site. You might also be able to ask your boss or whoever is in charge of the food if they have nutrition information anywhere for what is served.

    I would also just double-check with your boss that you, an adult, are really expected to function on the same amount of food/calories as a bunch of 3-year-olds - are you sure you're not allowed to bring your own food?
  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,621 Member
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    goal06082021 wrote: »
    There are entries for institutional food (Sodexo, Aramark, etc) in the database. How accurate those are is anyone's guess, but that would be my approach if they're cooking the food on-site. You might also be able to ask your boss or whoever is in charge of the food if they have nutrition information anywhere for what is served.

    I would also just double-check with your boss that you, an adult, are really expected to function on the same amount of food/calories as a bunch of 3-year-olds - are you sure you're not allowed to bring your own food?

    Thank you! I'll try that for sure, and I'll check with my boss.
  • TwistedSassette
    TwistedSassette Posts: 8,659 Member
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    MFP also recently released a meal scan option - I have no idea how accurate it is, but maybe worth a shot?
  • Mondowefte
    Mondowefte Posts: 150 Member
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    In this situation, I try to pick similar foods from restaurants, as I know that it is likely that provided meals in an educational setting are probably lower in salt, fat and overally calories, due to our local requirements (ymmv), and I would rather overestimate these things than underestimate. It involves some eyeballing, but err on guessing bigger, and see how it works out over a period of time. If is the same meals on repeat, you may be able to gauge how good your assumptions are and modify as required.
  • FitAgainBy55
    FitAgainBy55 Posts: 179 Member
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    I personally believe that the awareness of calorie counting is more important than the precision. As you log other meals that you can more accurately measure you will learn how to estimate.

    Just do your best to estimate it and try to be conservative (estimate higher) and you'll be fine.

    I lost and maintained my weight for 5+ years even though I had no ability to measure my dinners. My wife cooked all the dinners during the week and I didn't want anyone else to be inconvenienced just because I had chosen to track calories. I apparently got very good at estimating because I had no problem losing and subsequently maintaining my weight even those 1/3 of my meals were completely out of my control.

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