How to count calories when someone else made the meal???

Okay so this is my problem.  It's the summer and averyone is having parties, bbq, weddings, etc. And yes i know what foods to pick because they might be healthy but people prepare foods different types of way.

For example, yesterday there was a "pre-wedding party".  They had a buffet style lunch.  All indian food.  There was rice, daal (lenthil soup), spinash with cheese, vegetable curry, roti ( bread), sweet rice

So all i had was 1 piece of bread, lenthil soup and somesweet rice.  HOW MANY CALS I HAD? NOOO IDEA. you might think lenthil soup is healthy but they could have made it with butter!

This was the first party of the summer. I already know 9 of them that i am invited to so counting cals those days will be hard.

What do you guys do???

Well... it's all up to you how much you want to enjoy the parties or worry about the calories. Your options would be:

A) Don't worry about the calories, just focus on choosing the healthiest options. (like plain corn on the cob over potato salad)

B) When you know a party is coming up, plan to eat less on the rest of the days of the week to allow for extra calories. Just don't go too low.

C) If they are grilling outside while everyone is there, keep a close eye (without being obvious lol) on what and how much sauce, oil, and other ingredients they use.

D) To get an estimate, look up the same kind of meal you had from a restaurant's nutrition info. Restaurants are always worse in terms of calories and additives, so if anything it'll give you a safe over-estimation.

E) Contribute and bring your own homemade dish to share. Stick to mostly that, with a few servings of something guiltless the host is serving.

Those are just some of my ideas. I mostly tend to go for options B, D and E.

This happens to me too I DJ at weddings and bar/bat mitzvah's. I often end up being at the gigs for around seven hours so I am kinda forced to eat what they are serving when allowed (100 cal snack packs don't cut it for that many hours!) It's so hard!

I am also currently "dating" and have the same prob on dates. Sometimes the places I go to dinner don't have nutrition facts available and I don't want to look crazy to my date! The above tips are good. When all else fails I just go for small portions or the "healthiest option".

It drives me crazy at the end of the day when I have to put a "?" instead of how many calories I ate in my journal :(

If you enjoyed the meal, another idea would be to ask the cook for the recipe.  This is also a real compliment for the chef!  Although sometimes this can be scary like the time a friend's recipe for a delicious curry included 1.5 cups of peanut oil for 8 servings!

Original Post by piedmontq1:

If you enjoyed the meal, another idea would be to ask the cook for the recipe.  This is also a real compliment for the chef!  Although sometimes this can be scary like the time a friend's recipe for a delicious curry included 1.5 cups of peanut oil for 8 servings!

 

 I find this ^^ is probably the most tactful way to get calorie information from a meal prepared by the host.

At bbqs, I usually just ask the group of folks in charge of the grill to make me a 'plain' piece of whatever is getting grilled with no sauce.

I have the same issue when I eat out at restaurants and generally what I do is I search on the food and generally it brings up something, whether the ingredients are the exactly the same you never know but you have a gut feel for whether its around the right ball park and I just add the item for the portion size I believe I had.

That way I can feel like I am still tracking and have some idea of how I went for the day.  I tend to eat what I want when I go out and always pick something I actually want to eat rather than just trying to reduce my calories and then I just control my calories for the rest of the day when I actually ie breakfast or the meal I have at home.

Close enough is good enough in my view as it isn't every day and I keep good track on  most days.