http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...ec3_lnk2|78847

Careful about eating out! Yeesh, it's a good thing I always over estimate my calories!

Yep!

I usually add in a few more points for what I call "invisible/accidental restaurant oils"... I just do not know what is in the food unless I'm watching, so I need that wiggle room in case there are more calories on my plate than are listed.

Interesting article.

I hate when things like this are thrown in though: "The researchers equated discrepancies of 100 calories or more with a potential weight gain of 11 to 33 pounds per year, if said foods were consumed every day."

I did the math. 11 lbs is based on eating 100 extra calories per day, every day for 365 days. 33 lbs is based on eating 100 extra calories each meal, 3 meals a day, for 365 days. I actually should be 31 lbs, since the 11 was rounded up.

I feel like that's exaggeration. Some one eats out every meal, and every time orders one of the mislabeled dishes? It's just not a useful bit of information. The article talks about people needing to be educated about not only what calorie counts are, but what they need, and this article doesn't do much in that direction.

I agree completely. I wish reporters would just report, not opine or slant.

I am a big private enterprise, free-market type of person, but I do believe that restaurants should be required to list their calorie counts. Informing the public is a good start. While I agree that many people will not use that information, some will.

That's why I always estimate as high as possible when I'm eating out. I usually don't eat out much at all, though, so the occasional miscalculation doesn't hurt me too much, I think.

Yeah, journalistic scare tactics don't do a whole lot for me, either... I'm sure they get a lot more readers with threats of 30+ pound gains than they would with claiming 2-3 pounds from eating out once a week, though.

Yeah, when I eat out, I always try to give myself a 200-400 (depending upon what it is) calorie wiggle room. I eat less than my daily goal, or I'll do something like: This meal is supposed to only be 400-500 calories and that includes the dressing or mayo based sauce or cheese or whatever (if applicable), so I won't get that sauce/cheese but I'll still count the calories as if it was there.

I have a love/hate relationship with eating out. It makes me feel like a rebel. The only place I do well is when I eat out at Subway. My hubby and I went out to a restaurant recently. I thought I would do well and I ordered a turkey sandwich. Bread, lunch meat, cheese, veggies. That's it. I got home & looked it up on their website and it was 1350 calories. HOW?! A turkey sandwich?! I couldn't believe it.

I very rarely eat anything out unless I know at least a good approximate of what the calorie count is - and then I also give myself at least a 100-200 calorie wiggle room and also eat less than half of the meal. It's kind of funny because I am so paranoid about eating more calories than I plan to eating out, I usually go down a bit on those days because I invariably most likely wildly overestimate!

I have solved this problem for myself by finding a few entries on the internet for a particular restaurant dish, average out the numbers and enter it in my database and go with that figure for that dish, no matter where I eat it. This is really helpful for Chinese restaurants, which can really be widely different in their ingredients for the same named dish. When I use my set number count and amount, I stop fretting about the potential differences. I rarely eat out, so it's no big deal if my chosen count is not accurate for that particular restaurant.

thank God i always over estimate by alot...or based on what i know...