Today is Fast Food Friday and for my free day I went to the Ram with some former co-workers of mine. One of the hardest parts of counting calories for me is figuring out how many calories are in the meals that I eat at restaurants and other peoples houses. As an accountant I have this strong desire for my daily records to be as accurate as possible. This is pretty easy when I am eating prepackaged food and even food made at home because the nutrition information is provided and portions can be measured while preparing the food.
However, at restaurants and away from home I do not have the ability to measure my food. Also at a restaurant I do not know how the food is prepared and therefore how much oil and butter were used, was it lean ground beef or 30% fat, etc. At times like these I have to make an educated guess. For some reason guessing really hangs me up. I can do it as an accountant when it comes to month end number and preparing budgets but when it comes to food I have a hard time being "close enough" I have been on previous calorie counting journeys and have been completely derailed because I did not "know for sure" how many calories I had eaten at a particular meal or restaurant.
Fortunately there are tools and websites out there to help. Fast food is by far the easiest category of restaurants since so many of the fast food restaurants publish their nutrition info online and one burrito or cheese burger is just like the next at any given fast food joint. Sit down restaurants though present a greater challenge. Some have nutrition info posted some do not. When that is the case I use a web site called NutritionData.com to build the recipe using the major ingredient. This has helped me overcome my tendency to freeze up when having to guess at calories. I am not able to eat out and know that I can rebuild my meal and get pretty close on my count, which for now is going to have to be good enough.
TODAY'S STATS
Calories: 2591
Weight: 254 lbs
Mood: Feeling a bit under the weather
Total Weight Lost: 11 lbs since 1/1/09
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