Diary accuracy when dining out (or buying food without label

dlwyatt82 · February 2012

I've been tracking my meals on MFP for about a month now, and have run this situation a few times. Last weekend, we attended a funeral, and most of my food for the day was of the "quarter sandwiches, fruits and veggies or desserts on a tray" variety. I tried to estimate that as best I could, but most likely, my counts for the day were just a big worthless guess. On another occasion, my wife was making a beef stew which we had for dinner over a few days. We bought beef stew cubes from Whole Foods, but when I tried to add that recipe on MFP, there was a ridiculous variance in the calorie values for the same weight of beef in different entries of the database, so I don't know if the counts for any of the days where I ate that stew are accurate.

How do you handle this guesswork when trying to keep a food diary and lose weight?

ElizabethRoad · February 2012

Not sure why you're finding so much variation for beef. That should be pretty easy to find.

For dining out, I just find something similar in the database. Maybe it's way over this time, and way under next time. Logging it is still a good habit to have. And once you've been doing it for a while, you should have a pretty good idea what is a reasonable portion to eat.

And lastly, one meal isn't going to make a difference to your weight loss, so don't worry about it. Do your best as often as you can.

therealangd · February 2012

As far as the buffet food, as long as you made healthy choices, then rely on your guess. One day is not going to devastating to your overall progress.

As far as the recipe. I use what is on the package first as opposed to what MFP says.

If I'm doing the cooking I'll add the ingredients to the recipe.
If I'm doing just eating, I'll add each item seperately.

So, for a stew someone else cooked, I'd add 3 or 4 oz beef. 1/2 cup potato. 1/4 cup carrot. etc. then maybe pick a gravy from MFP and add 1/4 cup. Depending on how much I ate.

Again. It probably doesn't happen very often that you have to guesstimate your calories. One in a while is not going to hurt your overall progress.

ETA: If I'm buying something that is premade, like a cake or a trifle (mmm trifle) I'll pick something similar from the database.

alexsmith01 · February 2012

I used to not track it - which isn't very useful - but last weekend I ate out quite a bit and decided to track it all, but I just guessed.
Where there were double ups I went for the higher calorie options, because I thought it would be better to overstate than understate the calories.
For example - quarter sandwiches - I'd track the slices of bread, margarine, filling

I guess you have to decide whether you want perfect calorie counts or to be able to eat out! You could always choose things off the menu that are easy to track (e.g. pan fried fish and vegetables)

Not sure what to do about meat, as I'm a pescatarian (only eat fish), and meat has much more variance in calorie value because of the fat.

nixirain · February 2012

for the beef:

Try the scanning option if you have a smart phone. I have had pretty good luck with it.

Once you scan it in it should be in the database.

also, make sure you are searching raw or stewed depending on when you weighed the meat before eating. Some meat can lose over a full oz. of weight after cooking.

I would just make sure you over estimate your food going out to eat/special occations. and if all else fails, I track what I think is in them and if it looks too low I add a couple tsp. of oil to my diary to account for the extra fat that maybe hidden.

wxkris · February 2012

I know this can be frustrating, but I try to keep it simple by tracking AS BEST I CAN, and remembering that even the simple act of tracking is practicing portion control. It doesnt matter if there's a 200 calorie difference in what you might have eaten vs what you did eat. It's a heck of a lot better than saying "screw it" and eating whatever you want with the excuse that it doesn't have a label so you can't track it. If I decide not to track a meal, then the rest of the day I tend to just eat whatever I want because the day is already "lost." So good job on at least making the effort!

vacherin · February 2012

I also try to find the closest match on the database (and, to be on the safe side, if there are many variants of the same thing I tend to pick the highest-calorie one). Sometimes you can guess too much, or too little, but I feel what makes a difference is how you eat long-term and not whether you were over or under on that particular day. And even with the most inaccurate guesswork, you still eat less overall than if you are not logging at all.

Buddhasmiracle · February 2012

Occasionally I have used www.allrecipes.com. For example, we went out on Valentines and I had salmon wellington. On another occasion I had salmon encrusted with pecans. I found them on that web site, and entered the calories, macros, etc. from the recipes. It's not ideal, but it's better than entering nothing. Other sites, like Light Cooking, and Epicurion also provide nutritional value of meals t hat you can guesstimate from.

Diary accuracy when dining out (or buying food without label

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