Calorie Conundrum: Seeking Guidance on Grilled Beef Nutrition

Zieeeeel1
Zieeeeel1 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Greetings everyone! I've recently started monitoring my calorie intake, and everything is going well, except for the calorie count from beef. I shape it into a burger and then grill it in the oven at 230°C, making sure it becomes thoroughly dry.

According to the manufacturer, 100g of beef contains 18g of fat. However, I find this to be unjust because I'm confident that I've drained at least half of that 18g of fat during the grilling process.

Let's consider a scenario where I consume 300g of beef. According to the manufacturer, that would mean 54g of fat, equivalent to 486 calories from fats. However, the reality is that I haven't actually consumed those 486 calories!

Please refrain from advising me to err on the side of caution and account for those 486 calories, as an excessive calorie deficit could result in muscle loss. I'm hopeful that someone can provide assistance with this matter.

Best Answer

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    Answer ✓
    Maybe just log it with one of the database entries like "Ground beef, 85% lean, cooked" . . . or whatever percent it is? That won't be precise, either, but should be close enough to avoid major muscle wasting over the 4-6 weeks trial period (of your calorie goal) that it will take to see if your actual weight loss rate is close to the target rate you've built into your calorie goal.

    If you're very concerned about muscle loss, I'd suggest not setting a super-aggressive weight loss rate to start. You can always tweak more toward the aggressive rate, if you feel safe, once you know how close your calorie needs estimate is.

    Your calorie needs estimate is only essentially a statistical average for similar people, not "a truth". Most people are close to average, a few farther off, a rare few surprisingly far off.

    Also, I'd point out that research suggests that most people are very much more likely to undercount calories overall than to overcount them. In that sense, the risk may be slowed loss (safer muscles), not over-fast loss.

Answers

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,984 Member
    There's really no way of knowing I guess unless you put some carefully weighted piece of tinfoil in the oven to catch all the fluids falling down, and then hope you can dry any access water that might be present, then weight the remaining foil with fat and log the difference as negative fat.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,261 Member
    edited November 2023
    You can weigh the excess fat and subtract it from your total calories consumed. It's not perfect but neither is calorie counting. Some people wash their ground beef after it's cooked, which always made me giggle. :)
  • MoabFit2024
    MoabFit2024 Posts: 5 Member
    I use a scale to track how I am "trending." It is all relative. The goal, for me is to make progress- not perfection. If you drained some fat, try to select from the list an option that gets your numbers closer to reality. You can also adujst by portion size. Instead of selection one, maybe you can select 0.85. That should get your numbers closer. You can also in the future select leaner meats then 82% like Turkey. Chicken is probably the less great meats. Wild Salmon is king- and it has a lot of healthy fat. To me, fat is my friend. We need fat and cholesterol. From a dietary standpoint, I am not worried. I am more worried about carbs which will then weaponize that fat e.g., Burger...with a bread bun and ice cream desert. The meat alone, for me is beneficial and good. Some people eat Carnivore (all meat) and seem to thrive. I don't but I do worry much more about carbs, sugar, salt, etc. Do chose healthy meats though. I also track my own blood sugar at home. It's a great tool to modify my eating.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Zieeeeel1 wrote: »
    Greetings everyone! I've recently started monitoring my calorie intake, and everything is going well, except for the calorie count from beef. I shape it into a burger and then grill it in the oven at 230°C, making sure it becomes thoroughly dry.

    According to the manufacturer, 100g of beef contains 18g of fat. However, I find this to be unjust because I'm confident that I've drained at least half of that 18g of fat during the grilling process.

    Let's consider a scenario where I consume 300g of beef. According to the manufacturer, that would mean 54g of fat, equivalent to 486 calories from fats. However, the reality is that I haven't actually consumed those 486 calories!

    Please refrain from advising me to err on the side of caution and account for those 486 calories, as an excessive calorie deficit could result in muscle loss. I'm hopeful that someone can provide assistance with this matter.

    It's going to just be your best guess. The nutritional value for most foods is for raw/uncooked. I'd probably just find a "cooked" or "grilled" entry for whatever % of fat your ground beef is. Also, none of this is some kind of exact science so don't try to make it be so. Also, if you erred on the side of caution and accounted for the full raw calories you wouldn't be in danger of an excessive calorie deficit...you'd most likely be accounting for more calories than you're actually consuming, so there's that.

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