and it felt very strange.

For Mother's Day, my family wanted to go to a chinese buffet. I really have no idea how to count what I ate so I decided not to count it at all. I didn't go crazy and I tried to stick to mostly lower calorie choices and skipped the dessert completely. I figure one day out of the last 7 weeks, I could just let it go! My present to myself I guess you could say.

Has anyone else had a slight panic not being able to add it up for the day?

Yes, I get a bit worried when I can't count, but I am a pretty good estimator... I overestimate too. This is just too important to me to have too many of those non-counting days. I think if you can do it one day in 7 weeks and then hop right back on, more power to you! That certainly won't hurt you and this is for life so you are going to have those days.

However, for me I find that one of 'those' days leads to a lot of those days and before I know it I am at day one again -- so just keep mindful of that and you should be fine

Happy Mother's Day!

sometimes i find myself in situations where i'm not preparing the food, thus not being able to calculate. after 7 weeks i'm sure you are more than aware of general estimates as well as which foods give you more nutritional bang for the count. when i have meals like this, i consider it training for the future. i'm not going to obsessively count for the rest of my life so i need to know how to make good choices calorie and portion wise. consider yourself in control and a success. happy mothers day to you too!

When I go out to eat right now, I find it hard to choose what I want because I can't count calories directly and I have to estimate. I know life cannot be all about counting calories forever and eventually my eating will have to evolve into just making better, healthier choices. But it's so hard when I don't know!

I also did not count yesterday, because we went to a baseball game for Mother's Day. I did feel strange about not counting, but I've skipped a day before and been fine so I'm not concerned that one day will turn into two and so on.

Are you the MOM? and they MADE you go to a Chinese buffet on Mothers Day? Your family is so mean!!! I'm the Mom in my family and I got to choose where we ate. I planned ahead. The restaurant we went to is small and locally owned, so no nutritional info, but they have similar foods to some of the restaurant chains so I estimated calorie counts from the 100's of on-line sources. The gift I gave myself was another new pair of size 6 shorts.

Next Mothers Day, you chose the resturant. It's your day.

If you could estimate what the lower calories foods were that you trying to stick too, then you had some sense of the calories or at least ingredients, so there's no reason you can't estimate the calories too. Just google the various dishes and you'll find something to go by.

At least for me, whether or not I'm completely accurate seems to matter less than just sucking it up and putting it all into my Fitday. (and mostly, it's usually not even as bad as I worry, even when I try to be very generous about estimating portions). And it helps me stay on plan instead of letting one bad day/one day without counting lead to a second and third and so on.

I did this for 2 days while I was on vacation......I actually was able to add my breakfast and lunch from the packages (I kept a tally in my head), so with dinner I knew how much I had left and I just tried to make healthy choices---lots of veggies, water to drink, some sort of 4oz protein and just a touch of carb. I think you will be fine!! I also agree with jlady that this will teach us to make good choices when we can't count and eventually we will be able to roughly estimate what we are consuming......however I think I will always be adding my daily intake up in my head, even if I don't write it down.....lol

I always estimate even the difficult foods. I use a nutritional software and if I don't, it messes up my calorie average and other reports. I am fine with an honest estimate, even if it was wrong.

Sounds like you handled it well in your choices. Good for you!

Howdy,
For me, calorie counting is forever and ever, amen. It won't stop. Not ever. So when I am in these situations, such as when we went to a Muslim Chinese restaurant in Cupertino, I estimated the whole thing at 2000 calories. We went with a friend who spoke and read Mandarin. Who really knows what I ate.

When we went to Happy Buffet (chinese) in Salinas CA, I did know what the foods I ate were called, logged them into my apps, and my numbers were more accurate. The more I do this with buffets, the less likely I will eat at them in the future. Which is fine by me. I came within my calorie goals as well.

One meal out of 630 over the past 7 months isn't going to doom my weight loss. Thinking I don't need portion control at some point would. Getting sloppy might land me in a self induced plateau.