Myfitnesspal - restaurant food

Alanhooly

Hi there,

I've been using MFP for the past two weeks and it's already working wonders for me. So far, all meals I have ate have been at home but I'm wondering how do you log/estimate food that you may have ate in a restaurant or in a take away etc?

To mark my first milestone of 2 stone, I'll be indulging in a one off Chinese takeaway before getting back on the horse. It just got me thinking of how I go about logging this.

Thanks a million.

Alf Veedersane

Maybe don't log it. If it's a celebratory dinner, then just have it and jump back into the logging after.

Cake Man

Agree with the above, just put aside an estimated calorie amount to account for it. Maybe go handy on breakfast and/or lunch (or even skip one if you wanted) to save the calories.
Went out for an Indian dinner last night and did this. I most likely went a bit over on calories but back on the wagon today, no biggie.

Mellor

There's plenty of fast food on MFP. If you want to stick in a number I'm sure you could find something. But as long as it wasn't every week, I wouldn't worry about the accuracy too much

Alanhooly

Thanks all.

I like to set a milestone target for every month or 6 weeks so it'd be nice not to have to see the damage in numbers haha.

Looking at the amount of calories in some of the most trivial of things I don't think I'd even like to know what's in a full take away. More than your daily allowance anyway

Cheers.

SozBbz

I find there are plenty of eating out options on MFP. I was out over the weekend for an asain meal and just by putting in the names of the dishes I had, it suggested generic calorie values.

They may not be entirely accurate but at least it gave me something to take note of and its an occasional thing anyway, so I know most of my days are accurate.

rubadub

Do you enter the weight in MFP? if not I would guess any estimates are hugely lower than what you get in a typical takeaway here. There is a new trend of takeaways listing calories an some claims are ludicrous, they are nearly always underestimating, I never once saw one I thought was too high. They can just send a small portion to an independent lab.

A real study was done before on Indian takeaways in Ireland.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/whats-in-your-indian-takeaway-1.pdf

There is huge variation between the takeaways. In one place a chicken korma was 2074kcal, an average pilau rice was 496kcal (max was 745kcal)

Lux23

I tend to just have a light breakfast/lunch and then give myself the evening off for any cheat meals. As long as you get back on the horse the first thing the next day you will probably be grand.

Todd Gack

Here's the Chinese takeaway report

http://www.safefood.eu/SafeFood/media/SafeFoodLibrary/Documents/Publications/Research%20Reports/What-s-in-your-Chinese-Takeaway-FINAL.pdf

Macy0161

I generally put in what I'm having, and see what comes back. I normally find there's a few options around the same calorific value, so I'd generally go for the high one of the one's in and around a similar figure (or the one that has macro estimates). Or if they still do them, would the tesco takeaway meals be similar to actual takeaways?

Whilst I didn't and don't sweat it about such meals, I do find it useful to see what impact it would have, as it keeps me on track/ from slipping into old habits.

Pterosaur

What you think it is in calories x2. Then you should be covered

SozBbz

rubadub wrote: »

Do you enter the weight in MFP? if not I would guess any estimates are hugely lower than what you get in a typical takeaway here. There is a new trend of takeaways listing calories an some claims are ludicrous, they are nearly always underestimating, I never once saw one I thought was too high. They can just send a small portion to an independent lab.

A real study was done before on Indian takeaways in Ireland.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/whats-in-your-indian-takeaway-1.pdf

There is huge variation between the takeaways. In one place a chicken korma was 2074kcal, an average pilau rice was 496kcal (max was 745kcal)

Well no, I don't carry a scales with me when I go out to eat - its a meal out, not a take away I'm talking about.

There are ususally multiple values available so I pick one around the higher side. I'm well aware that its not perfect but I prefer it to having a gap in my dairy and it looking like I've loads of calories left on that day.

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

A real study was done before on Indian takeaways in Ireland.

https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/whats-in-your-indian-takeaway-1.pdf

Here’s the full set of studies/reports

Chinese Take Away
Indian Take Away
Take Away Pizza
Take Away Burgers
Deli Counter – Chicken and Potato products

Luckysasha

During a recent episode of "Doctor in the house" on TV3 the participants had a takeaway Chinese chicken curry and boiled rice. The experts calculated it contained 1350 calories. I usually weight the dish and enter the info that way. I find that MyFitnessPal works well if you get the weight of the item correct in cases like this

SozBbz

Luckysasha wrote: »

During a recent episode of "Doctor in the house" on TV3 the participants had a takeaway Chinese chicken curry and boiled rice. The experts calculated it contained 1350 calories.

Thats still quite a lot. I'm only trying to eat 1500 per day so that would wipe me out almost. That said, its fine for an occasional treat, especially if you do it knowingly.

The problem though is a lot of people will order fried rice over boiled, maybe share some starters and then have some prawn crackers. Those few small changes can easily push it over 2000 calories.

SozBbz

Mellor wrote: »

Here’s the full set of studies/reports

Chinese Take Away
Indian Take Away
Take Away Pizza
Take Away Burgers
Deli Counter – Chicken and Potato products

This is useful and I'm sure theres a lot in here that people don't realise. None of it was really news to me though, like i know that adding bacon and cheese to a burger is going to increase the calories massively, and that fried rice and prawn crackers really need to be avoided.

Its still nice to go out sometimes though. If I were to go for a Chinese for example, I get beef in black bean sauce or chicken and broccoli with boiled rice - still less healthy than eating at home but not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Luckysasha

I hear you lol. Traditionally Friday night in our house was always takeaway night so I still do it but generally I'd snack on fruit during the day or nothing at all. Then enjoy my takeaway that night. I know it's hard to get bogged down in the whole counting side of things but if your generally under your target calories each day then one minor slip on a Friday night won't do much harm in the long term. Just be careful that Friday night takeaway doesn't become Saturday and Sunday night as well lol

rubadub

SozBbz wrote: »

Well no, I don't carry a scales with me when I go out to eat - its a meal out, not a take away I'm talking about.

I was advising the OP, who was getting a takeaway. But you can get pretty good at eyeballing portion sizes/weights too when at a restaurant.

With Chinese or Indian food, they will often give rice & meat/sauce it in separate bowls, be it in restaurants or takeaways. Lots pour some on a plate and then go back for more later. This makes it harder to determine how big a meal your really ate. My Chinese takeaway give noodles and they are compressed into a tray, when you pour them out they expand into this ludicrously sized portion.

Mellor wrote: »

Here’s the full set of studies/reports

Chinese Take Away
Indian Take Away
Take Away Pizza
Take Away Burgers
Deli Counter – Chicken and Potato products

great, did not know there were so many. I looked at the Chinese ones and spotted some odd things. I have never heard anybody order a prawn satay in my life, and I am always earwigging orders when waiting for mine (and I always walk over and order there & then). Because of this I know what a lot of people order on the menu. The prawn satay sounds like a trivial thing but it has me wondering if the people doing the survey have a clue about what really goes on.

The survey was making out like people would typically order a starter and main & rice. I think this is rare enough, from all friends & family I see ordering, and observing others ordering in the place. Nearly all I know would order just a main & rice/noodles, and in a lot of cases would not finish it. Everybody knows fine well you get loads.

Children’s options
Only 9 per cent of outlets offered a variety of children’s options. These were marketed as mini-meals, junior boxes or smaller portions.

I see a fair few people get half or smaller portions, mainly women or kids, or people getting half portions of say onion rings. These are not advertised, Indian takeaways seem to offer them a lot more than Chinese -for whatever reason. But when people order them they do not bat an eyelid.

I would like to see what actually went on in the takeaway and photos, i.e. did they go in and order all this stuff at once -if so it would explain the 270g prawn crackers I saw. Tesco sell large bags of prawn crackers, own brand and sharwoods they are 60g. A 6 pack of tayto snacks (similar in structure) is 102g. This 270g bag must have been a like a bin liner! But I could imagine some place throwing it in if you ordered all the stuff mentioned. This could skew the average. They do mention that crackers are often given free, if they went in and ordered them they might really have been getting 2-3portions. It is often "free over €12" so if you order €25 worth you get 2 bags.

The biggest king prawn satay was 768g, which also sounds very large, you would not fit that into the standard trays I usually get -I have weighed plenty in my time, packed to the brim.

I wonder what prices these things were too, many will have starters at a size intended for 2 people, the spring rolls ranged from 94-270g. You might have to see the full menu and overall pricing to gauge if it is intended for 2.

Macy0161 wrote: »

would the tesco takeaway meals be similar to actual takeaways?

Tesco meals would be far smaller than most takeaways, probably half the size. Some of the "finest" range stuff might be in slightly bigger sizes.

Alanhooly

Thanks for all the responses, some interesting (and scary) reading.

I'm just going to take the approach of assuming the worst and rounding up to 2,000 calories, eat light that day and get exercise in too to limit the damage.

I'm on a serious crusade at the limit so this take away in question will only be happening around once a month so it shouldn't do too much damage

My fitness pal is the best app it really helps me track my exercise and my food habits it's helped me lose 8 pounds so far

Mellor

SozBbz wrote: »

This is useful and I'm sure theres a lot in here that people don't realise. None of it was really news to me though, like i know that adding bacon and cheese to a burger is going to increase the calories massively, and that fried rice and prawn crackers really need to be avoided..

Sure you know those things were good, in any shape. But did you know how many calories actually in any of those dishes? Or just that it was loads?
I'd have had a good idea, but I think the upper limit exceeded my expectations

rubadub wrote: »

[
great, did not know there were so many. I looked at the Chinese ones and spotted some odd things. I have never heard anybody order a prawn satay in my life, and I am always earwigging orders when waiting for mine (and I always walk over and order there & then). Because of this I know what a lot of people order on the menu. The prawn satay sounds like a trivial thing but it has me wondering if the people doing the survey have a clue about what really goes on.

The survey was making out like people would typically order a starter and main & rice. I think this is rare enough, from all friends & family I see ordering, and observing others ordering in the place. Nearly all I know would order just a main & rice/noodles, and in a lot of cases would not finish it. Everybody knows fine well you get loads.

I think they were just giving a range options. Even if people share the starters, it's the calories per order, more so than per portion.
It's pretty large sample size, so going to be issues with sizes and variation. Like some spring rolls were clearly singles, and others portions of a few.

Regarding the prawn crackers. They be heavier than crisps due to some oil hanging on. A share bag of crisps is 180g, I could believed that one Chinese out of 20 had a bags bigger than that. I've seen bags that were essentially shopping bags full.

rubadub

Mellor wrote: »

Regarding the prawn crackers. They be heavier than crisps due to some oil hanging on. A share bag of crisps is 180g,

Any prawn crackers I ever got are far lighter per volume than crisps, if you mean "crisps" as in hunky dorys or king cheese & onion.

The supermarket bags I mentioned, both tesco & sharwoods are 60g, these are large bags, and sharwoods listed as 2 portions.

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=256326672

tesco list 60g as being 3 portions (tayto mulitpack snax are 17g, and retail/newsagent size is 22g)

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255553381

Prawn crackers are very cheap to make, and there is a tradition of them being given free, in stupid amounts. If you went in and ordered standard prawn crackers and nothing else there is no way any would give you 270g. Huge bags are a bonus for buying lots, I see my local throw 3-4 packs into a big pack.

People need to be aware and apply logic to spot anomolies and mistakes. Photos and prices would have helped.

I remember one guy I know swearing blind burger king medium onions rings were something stupidly large like 950kcal. I was repeatedly saying to him "if they were that big I would be buying them all the time and splitting them with people, that is fantastic value, 950kcal is a huge amount" -he really had no concept of it at all, and was not claiming it was a huge amount at all, he was trying to say they were simply extraordinarily high in kcals, but had no rational explanation how this could be. Turned out he was using some US phone app.

The problem comes when you have people believing things and swopping to another dish which is allegedly less calories or even the same, but in reality is far more.

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

The supermarket bags I mentioned, both tesco & sharwoods are 60g, these are large bags, and sharwoods listed as 2 portions.

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=256326672

tesco list 60g as being 3 portions (tayto mulitpack snax are 17g, and retail/newsagent size is 22g)

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255553381

Portions listed by Tesco is kinda irrelevant though. Has no impact on how much a Chinese hands out per order.

Prawn crackers are very cheap to make, and there is a tradition of them being given free, in stupid amounts. If you went in and ordered standard prawn crackers and nothing else there is no way any would give you 270g. Huge bags are a bonus for buying lots, I see my local throw 3-4 packs into a big pack.

Thats the point. They give them away for nothing, but they are quite calorific. If your local gives out 4 bags, I could see that being 240-270g.
Regardless, the 270g bag was an outlier. Not much point focusing on it. The average was 100g, which rounds pretty reasonable.

Photos wouldn't really give any usable info. The weights are given with are much more useful imo. If you get a bag of prawn frackers that's close to mean weight, it'll be close to the mean calories imo. The main takeaway (no pun intended ) should be the kcal/100g values.
The biggest flaw for me is the omission of sugar/carbs counts