Foods

hi everyone-

this question im sure has been asked before, but how do you estimate non-chain restaurant food?  for instance, i went to a regular restaurant and had a chicken wrap, lettuce, tomato, mustard something or other.  how do you tally the calories when when i look it up in the database, the amounts that they show range by so much?

thank you

The only way to judge is by eye.  And the way to judge by eye is to practice at home.... regularly weighing things before cooking them and getting used to how big 'a portion' looks on the plate.  Then, when you eat out, you can judge if the amount served is more or less than you'd normally have and estimate the calories accordingly.   Of course, what you can't be sure about are any  high-cal added extras.  Dressings, mayonnaise, butter...  For that reason, it's a lot easier to lose weight if you make/prepare most of your own food rather than eating out too much.  Even when food is calorie-counted the information only has to be 80% accurate.  So a 500 cal sandwich could be as much as 625 in reality.

i actually dont have a scale bc i dont want to be rigid with my eating and try to learn to eat "normally".  i know that since i am actually trying to gain it doesnt really matter if i over eat 1 day, but my thing is, i dont want to under eat either, so i was hoping that there was a method or something ppl do to guess the cals of a meal so they know how to plan the rest of the day.  i want to learn to be more comfortable w eating out and how to adjust my day accordingly.  thanks

gi jane -so if there was a slice of bread that was 50 calories would you say its best to give another 25 onto it? or if u had a cereal bar for 90 calories could that be higher in cals to coz of extra ingredients maybe, thats always been one of my fears like that :-(

hmm, im sorry, i actually dont understand what you said, but im figuring i had 3/4 of the wrap-200 cals, all the chicken-150cals, add 150 for sauce maybe, so maybe 500cals?  i said just mustard but i dont think it was really just mustard, sort of creamy tasting.

misundastood....  I don't want you to worry unreasonably.  Factory produced foods like bread and cereal bars are made to precise computer-controlled recipes and precise weights and are pretty accurate on the calorie counts.   

BTW if 50 cals is 80% accurate it could be 40 or 62... i.e. as likely to be understated as overstated.  So use the stated count and relax.

ok, i got that, but there was no given nutrition info, it was a chicken wrap from a random rsetaurant?

what i do is i try and count everything within the wrap:

for example, if there was 4 medium slices of chicken, i'd count that as half a cup. maybe .5cup of salad and 1 whole tomato. I also always overestimate, and that way maybe get some bonus calories.  

"this question im sure has been asked before"

Yes it has... right HERE:

http://www.calorie-count.com/forums/post/1074 92.html

Do you do this with all your posts?

I usually estimate by eyeing it but if I can think of a similar item from a different restaurant that does have its info online, I'll use the known restaurant's calorie count.

thanks guys, i suppose that there really is no way of really knowing.  especially when i look up a similar item at another restaurant and it will give 1 amount, then ill look at a similar restaurant to compare, and it will be completely diff! lol??!!