Problem Counting Calories

[hysterikz]

Just started a new job where we get free lunch in the canteen. It's pretty good food and you get a wide choice of available to you.

I'm on a cut so I'm trying to be healthy as possible - today, for example, I had rice, prawns, mixed veg and black bean sauce.

The problem I'm having is estimating the calories of the foods into MFP - I don't really like guess estimating grams etc, because I always feel I'm way off.

Dinner is fine as I have a scale at home so it's pretty accurate. Don't eat breakfast, just drink coffee, so lunch is the one I'm having trouble calculating.

I know it seems very fussy but I'd like to be as accurate as possible on this, I hate cutting so this doesn't help.

Any ideas or tips?

[lee__d]

Literally nothing you can do but estimate. Try to get around the same portion sizes of protein and carb sources and should be fairly accurate. It's only 1 meal per day.

[WonderPug]

Use satiety as your guide rather than explicitly counting, assuming a properly function hemostat.

In the alternative, just make an educated guess.

[Jamy2j]

Literally nothing you can do but estimate. Try to get around the same portion sizes of protein and carb sources and should be fairly accurate. It's only 1 meal per day.

Hey we get the free meal here on Thursday as well but think I won't go overboard started this plan this week lost a few pounds getting ready for a cousins wedding we also get stuff most Fridays to but I did bring some food in dont want to cheat

[Hulkenberg82]

I am familiar with that problem. We have a canteen at work as well and everybody gets different sized portions of pasta, for instance. That's why I never eat there and have to bring my own food with me. I asked if they could at least provide me with the nutritional information of the meals they serve down there, but they didn't comply - said it would be too much work.

[hysterikz]

I could bring in food if I wanted to but I'm saving a lot with the free lunch. It's not like it's bad food either, just can be difficult to estimate.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

[FarmerBrain]

To make it easier, maybe try to limit the amount of calorie dense options and eat more of the filling less calorie dense options. Would make being off of your estimations less crucial.

For example, limit sauces, dressing etc as they are extremely calorie dense and being off on them could be 100+ calories one way or the other. But eat more of the rice, meat, veg, potatoes, etc as you should be able to estimate there size more easily and being less calorie dense it is not as big of an issue if you slightly over/under estimate the portion size you ate.

Then evaluate your weight change in ~3 weeks and compare your weight change to how many calories you think you have eaten. Adjust your guestimation amounts accordingly.

[schneppy07]

Just started a new job where we get free lunch in the canteen. It's pretty good food and you get a wide choice of available to you.

I'm on a cut so I'm trying to be healthy as possible - today, for example, I had rice, prawns, mixed veg and black bean sauce.

The problem I'm having is estimating the calories of the foods into MFP - I don't really like guess estimating grams etc, because I always feel I'm way off.

Dinner is fine as I have a scale at home so it's pretty accurate. Don't eat breakfast, just drink coffee, so lunch is the one I'm having trouble calculating.

I know it seems very fussy but I'd like to be as accurate as possible on this, I hate cutting so this doesn't help.

Any ideas or tips?

That is about all you can do is estimate and try to round up for human error. I actually would bring my scale in if I was prepping for a show