New (again) and I have a tracking question when eating out

LiveOnceBeHappy
LiveOnceBeHappy Posts: 448 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I ate out tonight. I had about 1/2 of a lean steak, some garlic mashed potatoes, and some green beans. Very specific, right? All of it was loaded in butter though. I estimated on the steak, potatoes, and the green beans in the log. Do I just add a stick of butter to my diary?!?! It wasn't a restaurant chain, so no help there.

Thank you!

Denise

Replies

  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,941 Member
    How many grams is a ‘pat’ of butter though?

    I think I’d make a guess at 50g and call it good enough. Although there is no way to know how much butter/cream were in the mashed potatoes never mind on the steak and beans!

    But it’s one meal, even if you’re way off it’s not going to change anything in the long term.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    honestly, one meal... not going to make a difference. i wouldnt worry about it, honestly

    but...

    and i say this only because we had steak last night also, so its at the top of my mind LOL

    i had just under 4 oz of steak (i think 3.4 iirc). it was TINY. so small that my husband, who NEVER comments on my portions, made a comment about how small it was and asked if i wanted some of his LOL. that was roughly a quarter of a NY strip, trimmed.

    so you may want to double your estimate, or keep that in mind for next time.


    restaurant food will get you every time ;)
  • panda4153
    panda4153 Posts: 418 Member
    I would add a tablespoon of butter 15 grams. 50g is a huge amount of butter, so is a stick. The mashed potatoes if you picked a decent database option would include the butter and cream added to them.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    I agree with previous posters that in the long run it doesn't matter - though if you were going all the time and getting the meal, then it could be useful to try and nail down some more specifics.

    One strategy I use a lot when consuming restaurant food is to pick a similar item at a chain. A lot of the tricks of the trade (like using copious amounts of butter) are going to be the same regardless of where you go, so using the menu data from, say, Applebee's is as good an estimate as any even if you go to a local place. Another strategy is to look at the search results and pick an entry that is in the middle of the range or that is repeated often - I often think the super low ones are way, wayyyyy too optimistic. Is it perfect? No. But it works for me for the occasional time I eat out.
  • ehju0901
    ehju0901 Posts: 394 Member
    To be honest, when eating out a lot of time I don't even bother trying to log it. There is so much variance in it all that it makes it impossible to even try to be accurate. I just try to be mindful that it was probably more calories than I typically eat per meal and it was probably high in sodium so I adjust my other meals around it, :lol:
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited August 2021
    callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
    honestly, one meal... not going to make a difference. i wouldnt worry about it, honestly

    but...

    and i say this only because we had steak last night also, so its at the top of my mind LOL

    i had just under 4 oz of steak (i think 3.4 iirc). it was TINY. so small that my husband, who NEVER comments on my portions, made a comment about how small it was and asked if i wanted some of his LOL. that was roughly a quarter of a NY strip, trimmed.

    so you may want to double your estimate, or keep that in mind for next time.


    restaurant food will get you every time ;)

    This.

    That said, a lot of chains have calorie counts and entries. Even if a specific one doesn't I just pick one that's similar and move on. (I say this largely because that specific meal from the OP is my standard when I get roped into Applebees. It's about 800 calories, give or take a particular steak.
    Also I'm stupid crazy about those green beans so I'm not even mad when I'm roped into it, LOL.)
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 921 Member
    I'd just estimate the best I could and not worry about being off -- it's just one day.

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