i have no idea how many calories i just ate

I had lunch at a friends place, and everything she made was so rich and delicious

there was an amazing eggplant dish, that i could tell was made with lots of oil. and i had some fresh baked flatbread. and these crispy fried chicken things with a sweet sauce. then i had a coffee with cream and sugar with 2 mini donuts.

i don't regret it, and i'm not worried about it, i'm sure my calories are way over my limit, but w/e. it doesn't happen every day.

i'm just curious what your opinions are on situations like that, where there is just no way to get an accurate calorie count?

Original Post by thin_girl:

I had lunch at a friends place, and everything she made was so rich and delicious

there was an amazing eggplant dish, that i could tell was made with lots of oil. and i had some fresh baked flatbread. and these crispy fried chicken things with a sweet sauce. then i had a coffee with cream and sugar with 2 mini donuts.

i don't regret it, and i'm not worried about it, i'm sure my calories are way over my limit, but w/e. it doesn't happen every day.

 

i'm just curious what your opinions are on situations like that, where there is just no way to get an accurate calorie count?

Ahh, I have those times too. But you know like you said oh well, you indulged and it dosent happen everyday so who cares! But times like that I usually just put in my log the foods from scratch. Such as, eggplant, then I would estimate how much oil, ect. But yeah, who cares don't sweat it 

gosh i feel so heavy and sleepy now

i have so much work to do, but after that meal i just want to go to bed

The way I think about those situations is that they are a part of life.  For me, part of the challenge of losing weight was learning to find balance, to listen to my body, and to stop eating mindlessly - learning that makes it possible to maintain your weight loss and live a healthy life, with food.

You're not gonna be able to be cloistered away forever analyzing every calorie in every thing, and for thousands of years, people have been healthy before we ever began analyzing our food.  Some days you're gonna eat something really rich and delicious and other days you're gonna eat stuff that's a little less rich - maybe you'll be under your cals for the day without realizing it.  2000 or whatever is just a guideline, most naturally healthy people probably aren't eating exactly 2000 calories every day, some days it's under, some days it's over. 

Like you said, it doesn't happen every day.  I'm glad you don't regret it and that you enjoyed it, otherwise it wasn't worth it.

absolutely, the good times, laughing with my friends around the table, just enjoying peoples company is what life is about.. not calorie counting :)

hey thin girl,

i had a funnel cake and like 10 brownies yesterday. it was great ;) I have no idea how many calories i ate in all that either. i don't really care. i eat like that about once a week and the other days i'm super anal about what i eat and i definitely feel like it's enough to justify being very naughty once in a while. i think when your body is in healthnut mode and you introduce very naughty stuffs, our bodies are usually very forgiving. 

i love eggplant and i'm curious as to what kind of dish your friend made. if you ever have the chance to ask your friend for me, that would be great! 

oh yeah, 

so about a week ago you ate 900 calories in a day... so let's just say that what you ate today made up for your deficit on sept 29th and we'll just leave it at that. :P 

hahaha, you're right again!

life always seems to balance out without you even trying :)

my friend is persian, so the eggplant dish is a very popular sort of appetizer dish, called kashk-e-bademjoon

it's basically fried eggplant, onions and spices mashed up and served with sauteed herbs on flatbread

it's so delicious.. if there is a persian restaurant in your area, they would for sure have it there.

here is a picture of it

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RvbAM_ZDI0Q/Rvjydds O-0I/AAAAAAAAAaQ/TdPtzmxbUv4/s400/Kashk-e-Bad emjan+4.jpg

Those days are fun as long as I don't have them every day. I sometimes try to estimate the calories (just for a ballpark number) by comparing them to a sort of similar dish from a non-calorie cautious restaurant. I might also try to add up ingredients in my head then tack on one to a few hundred calories based on the cooking method.  I figure though, the restaurant match is probably as good a guess as any.  That eggplant dish sounds a-w-e-s-o-m-e!

I agree with you--when some delicious food comes your way, there's no reason not to eat it, as long as you don't overindulge every day. Like, I was at a major league baseball game and even though I was getting close to my calorie limit, I decided to have some ice cream because you can't go to a sports game and not have hot dogs/cotton candy/ice cream etc, right?

Basically, what you eat and your weight goals (whether it is to increase or decrease) should not dictate the fact that you are LIVING. You're only here for a short time on this earth, enjoy it while you can. :)

Yeah! Its ok to enjoy once in a while. Its so difficult to absolutely not eat the good stuff at parties and get togethers but also when you urself make it.

I love cooking and trying out new dishes from various cuisines. The other day I made this great steamed Indian snack called "Dhokla" which is made out of chickpea flour and spices. Even though its just steamed, oil does go into the batter and later on for tempering. So it is pretty high in calories. It turned out great!!! How could I not eat it??!! I love the snack, its absolutely yummm!! I made it for my dad but couldnt help helping myself to it. I felt slightly guilty but then thought, oh well ... I can always make up for it during rest of the day. Doesn't make sense to steam your snack and not it too

i kind of like to think of it as, i didn't become overweight because i ate high calorie foods

i became overweight for overeating, and emotional eating, and just eating when i didn't need to or really even want to.

had i not done any of that, and still indulged at parties and from time to time, i would have never gained the excess weight, and therefore.. it must be ok

doesnt matter, as long as you stay active and eat clean 95 percent of the time then your metabolism should look after you. its ok to eat junky once in a while, your body will sort itself out. just enjoy life and keep eating healthy.

I used to worry about other people cooking for me, but now I know that there are always healthier choices and smaller portions.

I was at a Rib Cook Off on sunday with, obviously, ribs and tons of taco dip and chips. I was a taste tester: NO REGRETS! lol I only ate a few bits of each challenger's ribs and felt fine. I did take an extra walk at home the next day though...

Every once in a while it's okay to "go with the flow".

Does anyone else look at this and think "that's not too bad"? I do.

When days or meals like this happen, I usually try and add about 30 minutes to each work out that I do for that week.  So if I normally work out for 300 minutes a week then I up it to 450 minutes, that equals 90 minute work outs for 5 days, then I feel pretty good about myself because I know that it was a moment of tasty goodness, but it will not have a chance to stay in or on my body for long.

We all have different ways of dealing with this, but the biggest thing none of us should do is feel guilty, that will cause you to do things you normally would not do.  Stick to your normal plan and it will all pan out in the end.

Original Post by hgielrehtaeh:

Does anyone else look at this and think "that's not too bad"? I do.

i hear you

it really doesn't SOUND that bad

but honestly it was SO rich and it seemed like there was so much oil and fat in it, that I know it was one of those sneaky extra high calorie meals in the guise of vegetable dish.

Also the white bread, bread is always calorie dense and I ate a lot of it and fried chicken.

To someone who eats around 1500-1700 calories a day. it was pretty bad

Try being someone who tries to stick to 1200 calories a day.  It's not easy more so when you are invited to a party and they only food there is covered in all the items we are trying to cut out of our diets.

Even still, eating like this at an event, as long as it's not an everyday thing, really won't hurt that much. 

Keep up the good work, it will all pay off in the end.

I get anxiety when I don't know how many calories are in something now that I've been keeping a food journal.  it really freaks me out when I can't complete my day. My friend says i'm "ocd" about it and you can't count EVERYTHING but the loss of control really bugs me.  I get over it, of course, but I really HATE not knowing!

What I do is sneak off and drink water or fill up on something else and then just 'taste' the things that I assume are bad. It's SOOOO easy to ingest like 1000 calories and not even know it when you're dealing with tbsps of oil!!!!

For example one morning I went out for breakfast and then when I did my calculation of each item it was around 700 calories and i think I was being conservative, and I THREW HALF OF IT IN THE GARBAGE! you wonder how we have an obesity epidemic but gosh, when you can ingest 1000+ calories in 10 minutes and it only cost $3.49 it's obvious how we get into these predicaments! Geez!

my basic rule is "if you suspect it's high fat - JUST A TASTE" and JUST SAY NO! I know it's SO hard in social situations but do what you gotta do.  Sip on a water, move your chair away from the table so you can't reach, get something alternative to snack on if you can but whatever you do.... try to maintain your limit! :) 

Nobody ever said calorie restricting would be easy.  In fact, it's painful every day for me. To know that other people (aka my boyfriend!) eat freely with no restraint and don't gain weight really makes me blow my top sometimes LOL 

Original Post by 130by30:

my basic rule is "if you suspect it's high fat - JUST A TASTE" and JUST SAY NO! I

I started doing the 'Just a taste' thing too, with a lot of anxiety, worried that a taste would start me eating the whole unhealthy thing. Turns out though, this only happens maybe 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I realised it's not that great after all and just not worth the calories, and it was easy to say no to more. Reflecting on it, it seems like I have ingrained preconceptions on what will or won't taste good, but when I consciously taste it, I noticed many of those ideas of what is tasty are really true only 5% of the time.

This is not to say that thin_girl shouldn't have indulged. I say, if it tastes good, go for it. Since cc'ing and actually consciously tasting my food, I realise that really good food comes along very rarely and the occasion should not be wasted!

I urge you to watch Antishay's videos on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/antishay#play/all ). Her videos are really about calorie management not on a daily, weekly, or monthly time frame, but on a life time frame. 

I'll let that speak for itself..