My Fitness Pal when in restaurants

MarkY91

Hi guys

Got MFP yesterday and so far used it only with food from my home (the barcode scanner is great)

But I can't help but think how I will track my calories if I order food in a random restaurant. And I'll usually get a takeaway at weekends so how do I track that? I searched for a few restaurants on the app but no results come up(stuff like McDonald's comes up of course)

Should I just search for cheeseburger and chips/3in1 and add a random one into my diary?

How about a burrito and chips in a restaurant? Just find a random burrito result and put that in?



Like I said, very new to the app so I'm a bit clueless but surely people have a work around that I have not yet discovered.

Alf Veedersane

You can try work it out on the basis of what was in what you had and trying to match the components with what's in MFP.

It's going to be a rough approximation anyway and err on the higher side.

listermint

Try also knocking the take away on the head for the first month. Just as a goal. It will assist you in whatever goal you are achieving.

Thats not to say you cant treat yourself. But its good to set goals and small tough ones like a weekly takeway is ideal to try overcome.

You may not want one on month 2 (its only 30 days )

verycool

Sorry to point this out, but it's a bit of a contradiction using MFP and still getting takeaways / eating out.

Restaurants should have calorie counts on their menu's, so that would be a good starting point.

MarkY91

Maybe but it would be a boring life if you can't have a great every now and again. I have a takeaway every weekend and didn't count my calories up until yesterday so regardless of eating the takeaway or not, I should be consuming less calories in a weekly basis. I'm fully aware that the takeaway is terrible but at the end of the day, I just wanna clean my weekly diet up a bit while allowing myself to enjoy some unhealthy meals.



I'm also trying to find regular 5 aside football to attend too as I don't jog anymore and I don't often make it to the mark for a HIIT session.


My goal is just to lose a little body fat. I go to the gym 3 times per week trying to gain s little more muscle.

My stats are age 27, 6"2, 106kg..ish.

I gained alot of unwanted weight in the past year due to being lazy and not doing sports, travelling Asia and eating random crap like subway, McDonald's when I missed my western foods so I'm hoping to drop a couple of kg.

Thoie

If the calorie counts are on the menu, you can do a quick calorie add (without the meal name) - e.g. just do "Quick add" at the bottom of the screen and type in the number of calories.

If there are no calories, assume the worst So if you search for "cheeseburger" and one option shows up as 200 calories, and another at 1000 calories, select the 1000 calories one.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/i-ll-have-1-500-calories-with-that-burger-please-1.538017

MarkY91

Thoie wrote: »

If the calorie counts are on the menu, you can do a quick calorie add (without the meal name) - e.g. just do "Quick add" at the bottom of the screen and type in the number of calories.

If there are no calories, assume the worst So if you search for "cheeseburger" and one option shows up as 200 calories, and another at 1000 calories, select the 1000 calories one.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/i-ll-have-1-500-calories-with-that-burger-please-1.538017

Good point. I'll just assume the worse when adidng something on a menu without calories.

The app says that 2 slices of buttered toast were 400 calories. That's crazy!

Last night, I made a chicken stir fry and the calories were just less than the 2 slices of toast I had at breakfast and the stir fry was a full, hearty meal.

I guess my boiled eggs on toast breakfast the odd morning may have to be changed!!

MarkY91

Some more information:

I've set my app to 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs. It says my goals is 2,400 calories per day. I think that's a bit high though. My aim is to lose a little BMI% while hopefully maintaining/gaining muscle mass.

troyzer

verycool wrote: »

Sorry to point this out, but it's a bit of a contradiction using MFP and still getting takeaways / eating out.

Restaurants should have calorie counts on their menu's, so that would be a good starting point.

This. What's the point doing calorie tracking if you're not going to pair it with cutting out ****ty food? You CAN use calorie trackers in restaurants. I use cronometer (which is probably better), I had a meal in a Japanese restaurant yesterday and was roughly able to approximate the ingredients. But there's always a huge error.

Alf Veedersane

MarkY91 wrote: »

Some more information:

I've set my app to 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs. It says my goals is 2,400 calories per day. I think that's a bit high though. My aim is to lose a little BMI% while hopefully maintaining/gaining muscle mass.

Then don't worry about the targets specified and use it to track what you eat in line with the lower level you have in mind. The scale will tell you in time if your target is too high or not.

.......

verycool wrote: »

Sorry to point this out, but it's a bit of a contradiction using MFP and still getting takeaways / eating out.

Completely disagree.

Using MFP and tracking takeaways will very quickly show someone how many calories and what nutritional value a takeaway is adding to their weekly food intake, thereby allowing them to make better decisions.

You can have a takeaway with no negative effects to your overall diet, so long as you only do so occasionally.

It will quickly become apparent to the OP that a weekly takeaway is too often to be having them if he wants to eat well. Its a process of education but people need to go through it for themselves so that they can make the best decisions for themselves.

A blanket "no point using MFP and having takeaways" is unhelpful IMO.

verycool

....... wrote: »

Completely disagree.

Using MFP and tracking takeaways will very quickly show someone how many calories and what nutritional value a takeaway is adding to their weekly food intake, thereby allowing them to make better decisions.

You can have a takeaway with no negative effects to your overall diet, so long as you only do so occasionally.

It will quickly become apparent to the OP that a weekly takeaway is too often to be having them if he wants to eat well. Its a process of education but people need to go through it for themselves so that they can make the best decisions for themselves.

A blanket "no point using MFP and having takeaways" is unhelpful IMO.

Yep. Totally concede to this point as it looks like the OP is 27 so his metabolism is going to help! :pac:


That, and it sounds like he has an active lifestyle so unless you're trying to cut / bulk drastically then I would consider cutting the takeaways. But here it looks like they're doing no harm!

Alf Veedersane

verycool wrote: »

Yep. Totally concede to this point as it looks like the OP is 27 so his metabolism is going to help! :pac:


That, and it sounds like he has an active lifestyle so unless you're trying to cut / bulk drastically then I would consider cutting the takeaways. But here it looks like they're doing no harm!

The point made above is that the using MFP will demonstrate the impact of regular takeaways on their goals. Just telling someone not to do something because its bad will have much less of an impact on them that seeing the impact of regular takeaways.

You can't hide from the numbers.

Unless you decide to enter lower numbers for takeaways and then bemoan not losing weight despite staying within your 'target'.

verycool

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The point made above is that the using MFP will demonstrate the impact of regular takeaways on their goals. Just telling someone not to do something because its bad will have much less of an impact on them that seeing the impact of regular takeaways.

You can't hide from the numbers.

Sure the OP is going to do whatever the fcek they want anyway. Nature of the beast when giving advice. Especially without knowing any underlying medical factors.


Track it or don't track it. Just keep an eye on the calories in / out.

eviltimeban

MarkY91 wrote: »

Good point. I'll just assume the worse when adidng something on a menu without calories.

The app says that 2 slices of buttered toast were 400 calories. That's crazy!

Last night, I made a chicken stir fry and the calories were just less than the 2 slices of toast I had at breakfast and the stir fry was a full, hearty meal.

I guess my boiled eggs on toast breakfast the odd morning may have to be changed!!

Better to do each individual item. I've just done this in mine as a demo:

Bread, Brennan's, one slice: 87 calories
Butter, 1 tsp, 35.

If we double both those, you are looking at 244 for the whole lot. A boiled egg would be an additional 70 calories.

There's no point putting in "chicken stir fry" and going with whatever comes up. You need to portion out your chicken, veg, rice or noodles, and whatever oil or sauce you are using. I had noodles the other night and between the chicken, oils, and noodles, it came in at 898 calories (I had a fried egg on top for the extra protein).

MarkY91

verycool wrote: »

Yep. Totally concede to this point as it looks like the OP is 27 so his metabolism is going to help! :pac:


That, and it sounds like he has an active lifestyle so unless you're trying to cut / bulk drastically then I would consider cutting the takeaways. But here it looks like they're doing no harm!

Well I wouldn't say they're doing me no harm as during the week, I would try eat alot of protein but wouldn't have been aware how horrible bread is for you so would often have 2 slices of toast with my eggs. Now with MFP, I know that the toast is 400 calories so I'll be very wary of when I eat such wasted calories with the help of this app.

I'm just hoping I can eat a treat at the weekend while cutting calories the other 6 days of the week from wasted foods like toast while thinking I take doing little to no harm.

And I'm gonna try get more active doing the prowler after every gym session, find a 5 aside and/or force myself into the park for my HIIT sprints. Also I cycle alot to my girlfriend's now as opposed to getting 2 buses.

How many kg should icaim to lose per week? .5? .25? Nothing drastic like you said.

I would however like to have something noticeable by December as I'll be traveling Indonesia and Philippines so plan to be in a vest/topless alot

MarkY91

verycool wrote: »

Sure the OP is going to do whatever the fcek they want anyway. Nature of the beast when giving advice. Especially without knowing any underlying medical factors.


Track it or don't track it. Just keep an eye on the calories in / out.

I'll definitely be tracking my foods. I'll over estimate my calories for any bad foods like suggested above. I have no medical issues..that I know of anyway?

MarkY91

eviltimeban wrote: »

Better to do each individual item. I've just done this in mine as a demo:

Bread, Brennan's, one slice: 87 calories
Butter, 1 tsp, 35.

If we double both those, you are looking at 244 for the whole lot. A boiled egg would be an additional 70 calories.

There's no point putting in "chicken stir fry" and going with whatever comes up. You need to portion out your chicken, veg, rice or noodles, and whatever oil or sauce you are using. I had noodles the other night and between the chicken, oils, and noodles, it came in at 898 calories (I had a fried egg on top for the extra protein).

With my stir fry, I scanned the barcode of every food and put in the right portions etc. Even added the extra virgin oil to the mix.

Here's a screenshot of that meal.

https://ibb.co/dhBzFp

DaeryssaOne

I agree with what eviltimeban says above, while it can be quicker and easier to just pick a meal in MFP and hope for the best it tends to be way off compared to when you input each item individually.

So for a takeaway for example, if you were having a chicken curry with rice it would be a good idea to individually log the chicken, the veg, the rice, the curry sauce itself and maybe throw on a few tablespoons of oil to make sure you've covered as many bases as you can - it can be very easy to forget the extras like cooking oils, condiments (ketchup has a lot of sugar), cheese on top of your pasta etc etc. and these can be the very calorie heavy parts of the meal so you think you've had a 400 calorie meal that is actually closer to 700 for example.

Don't be discouraged though, it's interesting to learn what calories are in everyday items, I'm using MFP years and still enjoy adding my food every day.

Thoie

MarkY91 wrote: »

Good point. I'll just assume the worse when adidng something on a menu without calories.

The app says that 2 slices of buttered toast were 400 calories. That's crazy!

Last night, I made a chicken stir fry and the calories were just less than the 2 slices of toast I had at breakfast and the stir fry was a full, hearty meal.

I guess my boiled eggs on toast breakfast the odd morning may have to be changed!!

A friend started using MFP about a year ago, and has done very well on it. His problem was that he was completely unaware of his calorie intake, so MFP helped him figure out healthier/lower calorie choices (note that lower calorie doesn't always mean healthier - for example some foods marked as "low fat" are loaded with sugar to make them taste better). After a week or so, he realised that he was essentially hitting nearly his daily allowance before lunch.

He'd have a "healthy" breakfast at home (cereal, toast, etc) before driving a long commute. On arriving at the office, he'd have a "snack"and some coffee. If he stopped for petrol along the way, he might pick up a small sausage roll. I think he said he was hitting something like 1,500-1,800 before he'd even started work some days.

The main thing is not to get paranoid, but use the info to make small, easy changes. Perhaps wholegrain bread might have fewer calories than the bread you currently buy. Or maybe you could try a boiled egg on crackers/table water biscuits instead? Or make a cauliflower rice pancake and stick a poached egg on top of that?

Watch your portion sizes as well - people generally underestimate the portion size. Use a scales when cooking at home to begin with to help give you an idea of what 50g of this or 100g of that looks like.

MarkY91 wrote: »

Some more information:

I've set my app to 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs. It says my goals is 2,400 calories per day. I think that's a bit high though. My aim is to lose a little BMI% while hopefully maintaining/gaining muscle mass.

There are various calculators online that will give you a rough idea of your Base Metabolic Rate - essentially your "maintenance" calories. So maybe to maintain your current weight and not gain anything, that's 2,400 calories a day. Then in MFP, set your goal calories as 1,900 - a 500 calorie a day deficit, which should roughly equate to a half kilo a week weight loss. Do the maths yourself properly - don't just take my goal calorie number!

BMI won't take your increased muscle mass into account - it's a very broad tool.

MarkY91

Thoie wrote: »

A friend started using MFP about a year ago, and has done very well on it. His problem was that he was completely unaware of his calorie intake, so MFP helped him figure out healthier/lower calorie choices (note that lower calorie doesn't always mean healthier - for example some foods marked as "low fat" are loaded with sugar to make them taste better). After a week or so, he realised that he was essentially hitting nearly his daily allowance before lunch.

He'd have a "healthy" breakfast at home (cereal, toast, etc) before driving a long commute. On arriving at the office, he'd have a "snack"and some coffee. If he stopped for petrol along the way, he might pick up a small sausage roll. I think he said he was hitting something like 1,500-1,800 before he'd even started work some days.

The main thing is not to get paranoid, but use the info to make small, easy changes. Perhaps wholegrain bread might have fewer calories than the bread you currently buy. Or maybe you could try a boiled egg on crackers/table water biscuits instead? Or make a cauliflower rice pancake and stick a poached egg on top of that?

Watch your portion sizes as well - people generally underestimate the portion size. Use a scales when cooking at home to begin with to help give you an idea of what 50g of this or 100g of that looks like.




There are various calculators online that will give you a rough idea of your Base Metabolic Rate - essentially your "maintenance" calories. So maybe to maintain your current weight and not gain anything, that's 2,400 calories a day. Then in MFP, set your goal calories as 1,900 - a 500 calorie a day deficit, which should roughly equate to a half kilo a week weight loss. Do the maths yourself properly - don't just take my goal calorie number!

BMI won't take your increased muscle mass into account - it's a very broad tool.

Thanks for the input.

Yeah the app is great, I was searching random foods and scanning barcodes at home seeing what calories etc they had, some stuff I seen is shocking!

I'll do the maths but 2000 or just under seems doable to me..providing I am a totally using the app correctly.

My stir fry dinenr is in the link below. I scanned the barcode of everything I ate in the dinner and am sure I did the portions correctly to get accurate calories. But 380 calories seems stupidly low though.

https://ibb.co/dhBzFp

silverharp

i find the best thing to do in restaurants is just avoid certain dishes or ask for one of the ingredients to be switched out for something else or if you have some kind of a "cheat meal" once a week have at it and enjoy your pizza or indian meal whatever

MarkY91

silverharp wrote: »

i find the best thing to do in restaurants is just avoid certain dishes or ask for one of the ingredients to be switched out for something else or if you have some kind of a "cheat meal" once a week have at it and enjoy your pizza or indian meal whatever

Yeah good idea. We would often go to a restaurant in town and I like the burrito and chips. I should swap the chips for salad as the burrito itself is a meal in itself (Luigi Malone's, temple bar)

eviltimeban

Toast isn't 400 calories.

Also, scanning the barcode is maybe only giving you half the portion - quite often these sachets and packets are for two people, yet I bet you ate the whole thing.

The chicken looks like it's a 100g guideline, rather than the actual weight - was it one chicken breast, or two? Two breasts will be about 280 cals.

The best thing is to weigh your portions, then you'll know for sure. The good thing is, you only have to do it once for each item, and if you eat the same kinds of things every week or so, you'll soon have a bank of things that you just click on and they'll be added in automatically.

MarkY91

eviltimeban wrote: »

Toast isn't 400 calories.

Also, scanning the barcode is maybe only giving you half the portion - quite often these sachets and packets are for two people, yet I bet you ate the whole thing.

The chicken looks like it's a 100g guideline, rather than the actual weight - was it one chicken breast, or two? Two breasts will be about 280 cals.

The best thing is to weigh your portions, then you'll know for sure. The good thing is, you only have to do it once for each item, and if you eat the same kinds of things every week or so, you'll soon have a bank of things that you just click on and they'll be added in automatically.

Yeah I noticed today when making chicken that the filelt isn't 100g, it's about 150 grams.

When I scan the barcode, I adjust the portion or grams to what I am eating.

What I made is in the link below as a screenshot. To me, it seems like I'm using it right but I am a notice to the app.

https://ibb.co/bK3KgU

Dial Hard

MarkY91 wrote: »

I'll do the maths but 2000 or just under seems doable to me..providing I am a totally using the app correctly.

You don't need to do the maths. Input your height, weight, goal weight and activity level in MFP and it'll give you your daily calorie total.

eviltimeban wrote: »

Toast isn't 400 calories.

It could easily be if he's buying that extra thick toastie bread and lacing it with butter.

eviltimeban wrote: »

Also, scanning the barcode is maybe only giving you half the portion - quite often these sachets and packets are for two people, yet I bet you ate the whole thing.

The chicken looks like it's a 100g guideline, rather than the actual weight - was it one chicken breast, or two? Two breasts will be about 280 cals.

The best thing is to weigh your portions, then you'll know for sure. The good thing is, you only have to do it once for each item, and if you eat the same kinds of things every week or so, you'll soon have a bank of things that you just click on and they'll be added in automatically.

This x100 OP. You need to be completely sure that your portion sizes are accurate. As ETB says, there's no point inputting that you had 100g of chicken when you really had three times that. Until you get used to it, always double check the portion size/number of servings.

I cook every night so the Recipe function in the app is brilliant. You add the recipe once (you can even import it if it's online) and save it and then it's there for every time you have it in future. Again, just make sure you do it accurately. MFP is like many other things in life, if you put rubbish in, you'll get rubbish out. Do it accurately or don't do it at all.

Barcode scanning is the easiest but if you're doing generic "Chicken breast" type searches, anything with a blue tick has been verified by a dietitian.

MarkY91

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm taking it all on board.

What do you guys make of my screenshot in my last post? I corrected the chicken fillet from 100g to 150g. I even measured my Frank's hot sauce in teaspoons. Then for the salad, I looked at the total grams in the box and grabbed what appears to be 1/4 so I made the portion to be 70g. The link is below again.

https://ibb.co/bK3KgU

Alf Veedersane

MarkY91 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm taking it all on board.

What do you guys make of my screenshot in my last post? I corrected the chicken fillet from 100g to 150g. I even measured my Frank's hot sauce in teaspoons. Then for the salad, I looked at the total grams in the box and grabbed what appears to be 1/4 so I made the portion to be 70g. The link is below again.

https://ibb.co/bK3KgU

It's not an exact science so as long as you try to be as accurate as you can, that will guide you.

Penn

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

It's not an exact science so as long as you try to be as accurate as you can, that will guide you.

Totally agree. I weigh stuff as much as possible, bu sometimes you just have to estimate it as best you can. Break it down into as many components as possible, and when you search something generic and the calories vary on so many different options, it's just best to go with an above-average one. But the more you use the app and weigh things yourself, you'll get a much better idea of it yourself.

eviltimeban

Keep going though, you'll get the hang of it soon enough! And it's so worth it - I lost 2 stone as a result of watching my calories and changing my diet.

Alf Veedersane

Ultimately, it's to try make you more accountable...more mindful of what you're eating. It gives you a better appreciation of what's in what you're eating.

So you log the food(s) you suspect are hampering you and see the calorie count and you realise they weren't worth it and next time you make a smarter decision. You don't need to be paragon of 'clean eating' but it helps inform you so you can make smarter decisions more often.