Help! Does anybody else resist eating foods with an unknown amount of calories?

... and want to start enjoying their favorite foods again? I am a 19 year old, 151lb, 5'8 male who has successfully maintained my current weight for 5 months after losing 135 pounds. I attribute this to continuing to count calories, working out about 5 days a week and monitoring my weight. Although being so strict about counting calories is a little annoying, I realize that I must do this in order to maintain my weight. It's just a way of life for me now. I know myself, and after attempting to intuitively eat and instead suffering a horrible relapse which resulted in me gaining all of my weight back, I have decided to calorie-count for the rest of my life. There is one flaw in my strategy, though... and I want to correct it because like they say in regard to weight maintenance: Don't do anything that you can't see yourself doing for the rest of your life. And I'm sorry, but I don't think I can resist my mom's delicious home-cooked Afghan food any longer! Or the food from my favorite Indian and Chinese restaurants that don't have nutrition information available for customers. Or for that matter, the to-die-for pastries from the local mom-and-pop donut shop. I don't know how I've gone so long without eating these foods... chalk it up to my need to be perfect and 100% accurate about the calories I consume-I know, I know... but it's just the way I am! By the way, I might be obsessive about calorie-counting but I don't think I suffer from an eating disorder. I eat a healthy amount of calories (2,000-2,500) and am entirely in love with food. I realize that if I want to enjoy all of these foods from time to time, I have to accept that I don't know the exact number of calories in them and be content with that uncertainty. That said, how in the world do I even estimate how many calories are in these foods?

Afghan food: Should I just take the ingredients being used into account and take an educated guess at it? It could be so much different than how many calories it really is, though!

Huge donuts and cinnamon rolls from the local donut shop: The donuts are about twice or thrice the size of Krispy Kreme donuts... should I just multiply the calorie amount and call it a day?

Chinese fast food restaurant that I used to love going to: Take the information from a Chinese fast food chain's website and apply it to the food from my favorite place? Chow mein, lemon chicken and curry chicken is what I get from my place, and those are pretty classic dishes and probably wont differ that much from the chain's nutritional information right?

Indian restaurant: I have found a couple of websites that give very general estimates... but they use grams and ounces to describe serving sizes, and I'm not going to take a food scale to a restaurant! Do a rough estimate and enjoy this food once in a while?

I think you all get what I'm saying... opinions? Thanks in advance, I have been struggling with this aspect of weight maintenance for a while now and am very excited at the prospect of being able to enjoy these foods once again!

Well I guess one method to help is buying a food scale if you don't own one and measuring some of the foods you expect to eat regularly. Other than that you'll just have to take your best guess based on the ingredients.  There is no way to be 100% accurate.

eat all of those foods that you can't live without in moderation. if you have something that you suspect is high cal then just eat it and the next meal choose something that's extremely healthy. so you can be more aware of the cals in the other food that you eat when you have these treats but don't worry about accuracy when counting the unknown because you'll never know. make it one meal a few times a week and the rest of the foods that day healthy and i'm sure you'll be fine. anything in moderation. i'm sure your family is doing a fine job of maintaining their weight without calorie counting so you can too.

The best advice I have ever received is if you eat something of unknown nutritional value eat a smaller amount than what you would normally eat then eat a "pound of spinach" for dinner meaning that the rest of the day should be fruits and non starch veggies. Depending on what it is you are eating you may plan your whole week around it.  Something that has worked for me is to have a day in the month that I can eat whatever I want without worrying. Since I plan for it I don't feel the need to mess up the other days. Since it seems as if you are trying to maintain and not lose you could pick one meal a week that you aren't going to worry about it. Just make sure you don't over due the portions. Calorie counting doesn't mean you never have fun again it just means that you need to plan for it.

Thanks Yay, Humility, and Chrissy... will take those opinions into consideration. I don't see myself wanting to whip out a food scale for the rest of my life, so I will either estimate it to the best of my ability or enjoy it in moderation. I suffer from an all-or-nothing thinking and am determined to beat it once and for all. That was the reason I gained all of my weight back last time... once I conquer that and learn to eat in moderation, I'm good to go!

I know how you feel. I live and work very close to a Whole Foods, so I go there a lot for healthy lunch.  You'd think that a company that focuses so much on healthy living and eating would make it easy to find their nutritional info for their prepared foods.  I've looked online and there was nothing, but their website said that the employees in their kitchens have access to the information.  When I asked at my local Whole Foods though, they had no idea where to find that info.  Its frustrating because I know that sometimes things like chicken salad or soup can have hidden calories, and I've got a long way to go to my target weight...I don't want to take any risks.

Still, it hasn't kept me from eating there but I try to keep my calorie estimates on the high side so there's no surprises.  And for the most part, I think their food is healthy...but I know that sometimes when I've made assumptions about something being good for me, I've been blindsided when I find out that its not nearly as good as I thought.

Original Post by mhumility:

The best advice I have ever received is if you eat something of unknown nutritional value eat a smaller amount than what you would normally eat then eat a "pound of spinach" for dinner meaning that the rest of the day should be fruits and non starch veggies.

That's a really terrible idea on a lot of levels.... By all means eat more lightly if you've had a heavy meal the day before but this kind of fruit/veg 'punishment' is unnecessarily harsh and can set off starve/binge cycles in certain people.

Original Post by gi-jane:

Original Post by mhumility:

The best advice I have ever received is if you eat something of unknown nutritional value eat a smaller amount than what you would normally eat then eat a "pound of spinach" for dinner meaning that the rest of the day should be fruits and non starch veggies.

That's a really terrible idea on a lot of levels.... By all means eat more lightly if you've had a heavy meal the day before but this kind of fruit/veg 'punishment' is unnecessarily harsh and can set off starve/binge cycles in certain people.

i agree with jane

this is pretty terrible advice for 'the best advice you have ever received'

Usually, if I go out I try to pick chains because they're more likely to have their nutritional information posted online.  But sometimes (a lot of the times), I want something like Chinese food, or Greek food, or something else that there's no chance in hell that the 80 year old owners of the local restaurant even know how to get to google.

In these cases, I do two things: make educated guesses, or just chalk it up to an unknown day.  Having a few days here and there where you don't know how much you ate isn't going to kill you, as long as you balance it out.

For instance, last night I discovered while searching for a new place to try for gyros that we have a Lebanese restaurant in town (which is insane that I haven't found this place before, being that I'm Lebanese and absolutely love any and all arabic foods) and I'd kill for some good tabouli.  So I got my gyro... and tabouli, and labneh.  Do I know how much I ate?  I have an estimation.  It boils down to: a lot more than most dinners I have.  Did I feel guilty?  Not in the least.  It's not like I do this every night, and it was delicious so it was well worth it.  I just plan to work a bit harder at the gym today. :)

Original Post by sukibahsoun:

Usually, if I go out I try to pick chains because they're more likely to have their nutritional information posted online.  But sometimes (a lot of the times), I want something like Chinese food, or Greek food, or something else that there's no chance in hell that the 80 year old owners of the local restaurant even know how to get to google.

In these cases, I do two things: make educated guesses, or just chalk it up to an unknown day.  Having a few days here and there where you don't know how much you ate isn't going to kill you, as long as you balance it out.

For instance, last night I discovered while searching for a new place to try for gyros that we have a Lebanese restaurant in town (which is insane that I haven't found this place before, being that I'm Lebanese and absolutely love any and all arabic foods) and I'd kill for some good tabouli.  So I got my gyro... and tabouli, and labneh.  Do I know how much I ate?  I have an estimation.  It boils down to: a lot more than most dinners I have.  Did I feel guilty?  Not in the least.  It's not like I do this every night, and it was delicious so it was well worth it.  I just plan to work a bit harder at the gym today. :)

 But conversely, big chain places are usually more unhealthy than places that cook with proper food, aren't they? A couple of little vegan cafes I like do tasty homemade cakes and stuff - I have no idea how many calories but I bet you anything it's less than any chain food you ever buy, and they only have about 5 ingredients in them rather than 25. Same with restaurants I reckon, the little unique ones are the ones with cook with real ingredients. My favourite restaurant doesn't even do their menu in English!

I would rather buy all my food fresh from the market than in little plastic bags with calorie counts on them. It's just better food.

The lebanese food sounds yuuuuuuuuuuuuum

For the most part, I'll agree with you.  That's why if I want something that is more unique, I'll stick to just guessing at the calorie content.  But if I want a burger or a salad and I'm going out, I'll suggest a place that I can find out the calories, especially stuff like that that can often have many hidden calories.

Like I said, I usually end up wanting something that's harder to obtain in a chain way, mostly ethnic foods. :)  So I end up guessing quite a bit anyways.

It sounds like maybe you're not ready for intuitive eating yet. The term implies the ability to look at a food and correctly gauge the number of calories/nutritional value. If you can't do that, and/or you really don't know what went into these foods you love (which is hard at restaurants but should be easier with home-cooked meals), I'd continue to count the calories until you understand better the nutritional info about these foods.

I usually try to guess at the value of unknown foods (home-made meals - do they have lots of cheese in them? Oil? Cream? Yogurt? Nuts?). But then after I eat I usually go into Calorie Count and enter the most significantly caloric items that I know I've eaten to double-check my guess. So that I can get a good idea (hopefully) of what I've just consumed, and see if I was way off. Or if I know where I'm going/what I'm eating for a meal later, I sometimes look ingredients up so I can plan ahead.

I know you don't want to be tied to a nutritional scale either, but you'd only need to weigh one of your favorite donuts once, for example, to get an idea how many calories it's costing you. Bring the donut home, weigh it, and query Calorie Count with the specific weight in a comprable (Krispy Kreme) donut. Voila.

Congratulations on losing all that weight! 

I've also lost a lot of weight, and continue to count calories and pay attention, although it's getting somewhat easier now after almost two years of maintenance to relax about things.  Definitely, you should be able to enjoy some of your favorite treats and for sure, some of Mom's home cooking without blowing your weight loss away.

Have to agree that it shouldn't be necessary to just eat veggies for the rest of the day, just pay attention to portions and maybe have a somewhat lighter day the next day, and make sure to drink enough water.

I think guesstimating is not a bad strategy.  What I do is try to find something in the database that seems close and logging that.  For restaurant meals, I typically add in a little extra oil because I figure those dishes have probably got more than I think, certainly more than I use at home.  For your Mom's home cooked meals, have you thought about asking for some of the recipes and plugging them into the recipe analyzer here?  Then you'd have a pretty good idea on those.

Original Post by heatherkparks:

I know how you feel. I live and work very close to a Whole Foods, so I go there a lot for healthy lunch.  You'd think that a company that focuses so much on healthy living and eating would make it easy to find their nutritional info for their prepared foods.  I've looked online and there was nothing, but their website said that the employees in their kitchens have access to the information.  When I asked at my local Whole Foods though, they had no idea where to find that info.  Its frustrating because I know that sometimes things like chicken salad or soup can have hidden calories, and I've got a long way to go to my target weight...I don't want to take any risks.

Still, it hasn't kept me from eating there but I try to keep my calorie estimates on the high side so there's no surprises.  And for the most part, I think their food is healthy...but I know that sometimes when I've made assumptions about something being good for me, I've been blindsided when I find out that its not nearly as good as I thought.

Trader Joe's, ftw. :]

Caloriecount friendly.

Another thing I do when it is impractical to count calories (besides finding something close in the database and estimating) is to eyeball my plate of food.  If 1/4 is something starchy (like potatoes or pasta) and 1/4 is something like meat or cheese or beans, then I try to make 1/2 be vegetables or salad.  I figure I can't do to much harm to my calorie count with that breakdown, and when I log it in I usually throw in a tablespoon of fat into the meal to more or less account for the fact that it is richer than I would usually make.

Also, when I "cut my portion in half" (which is something I almost always do when I am away from my own kitchen), I take the leftovers home and weigh them.  That way I know approximately how many grams I ate, which is helpful when logging in an estimate.

I do this even though I am still losing, and it hasn't hurt my weight loss at all.  Since you are maintaining, you can have some more leeway.  Just be careful that you "usually" pay attention to what you eat, and the 10 or 20% that you splurge won't hurt you at all.

Original Post by dkenworthy:
Also, when I "cut my portion in half" (which is something I almost always do when I am away from my own kitchen), I take the leftovers home and weigh them.  That way I know approximately how many grams I ate, which is helpful when logging in an estimate.

 

this is genious!! great thinking :)

Original Post by heatherkparks:

I know how you feel. I live and work very close to a Whole Foods, so I go there a lot for healthy lunch.  You'd think that a company that focuses so much on healthy living and eating would make it easy to find their nutritional info for their prepared foods. 

They don't. They are focusing on "organic", "all natural", blah blah blah, not the same thing.

UD

Original Post by umneydurak:

Original Post by heatherkparks:

I know how you feel. I live and work very close to a Whole Foods, so I go there a lot for healthy lunch.  You'd think that a company that focuses so much on healthy living and eating would make it easy to find their nutritional info for their prepared foods. 

They don't. They are focusing on "organic", "all natural", blah blah blah, not the same thing.

UD

Well, that might be the case but they do market themselves as being a health-conscious corporation and the whole idea of 'organic' and 'all natural' comes from both a concern for the environment, a desire for more healthy living, plus the obvious fact that "green" stuff really sells right now. 

I wish we had a Trader Joe's...I've heard nothing but good things about them but alas, there's none anywhere in the Kansas City area.

THe key here is "marketing". Organic junk food is still junk food.

UD

Also, remember something most restaurants give you more food then you need leaving you over full.  When you get your food immediatly ask for a box and put half of whats there into a box.  It's whats kept the 30 pounds i lost off before i found this site(i eat out alot due to my job).