I do not want to be a scavenger anymore...

Ok so I am sure this topic has been addressed many times in multiple arenas but I do not have the time (or energy) to rummage through thousands of old topics to find the answer. lol So I was wondering how do people track calories when they are out of a controlled environment. For instance, If you have dinner at a friends house how do you know how many calories are in that secret recipe lasagna without scavenging through their garbage trying to decode calorie and serving size labels? This scenario applies to everything from eating at mom and pop shops, adult beverages, and activities that make you sweat but are not typically viewed as "exercise".

There's usually something similar in the database, so I go with that. I get an idea of how MUCH I'm eating, and then I can come home and search for, say, 'homemade lasagna' and input the size. It might not be exactly right, but odds are the calories are close enough.

I am not sure what everyone else does, but I will let you know what I do.

If I am going to a restaurant, I research on the internet. If nothing can be found on it, I will stick to the most basic thing on the menu, i.e. grilled chicken and steamed veggies.

With excercise, say I carried my one year old around the mall, I would put in one entry for the walking, and then one for weight training, because, hello, lol, that is certainly toning your arms.

With mystery lasagna, I would eat a very small portion and then just find the closest thing on the food log to that. I am going over to my mother in laws house for dinner tonight, and my sweet supportive husband already found out what was on the menu for me. It is all fried and full of fat, so I am taking my own dinner over. The family is all very supportive and my mother in law knows how very much I would rather have her cooking lol.

Your food log will ever be 100% accurate, but the main thing we are learning from logging is accountability. Don't go crazy trying to be perfect, just hit it as close as you can. MFP is awesome, and I have never had trouble finding what I was looking for to add to my food or excercise logs. God bless!

I was faced with this problem just last weekend. I went out with friends that love to eat and drink. What I do is if I know ahead of time pop in a dvd and exercise as much as I can before I go out so I wont worry about the calories or choose wise when it comes to the menu. Example every restaurant has a selection or steaks and fish dishes that you can choose from. Majority of the time they will have the ounces and cut of whatever the meat is(5 ounce steak, 4 ounce flounder, etc.). Choose that with a side of veggies and red potatoes and your good to go. Also a lot of restaurants have been logged into mfp as far as calories so you can search really quick and know what you want before hand.