Okay I live in a tiny town with lots of Mexican food restaurants. Most of them can't speak English, so I'm sure they can't give me the caloric count of their food...

But they are the kind of restaurants that make their tortillas homemade with good old fashion lard, nothing is measured, it all just depends on who's cooking your food that day...

Okay so I had 1187 calories left for the day and I have been craving a Beef Fajita Burrito all week...and well with the horrible morning I had, I said screw it and got one for dinner...

The tortilla is the size of a dinner plate, it is filled with Beef, Lettuce, Tomato, Cheese, and S. Cream...

I had NO idea how much they actually put in the burrito so I went to my calorie counter and entered in the highest burrito they had (950 calories)...amazingly I am still at 1675 with a limit of 2000...

I know I want to eventually not eat those and maybe just it's counter part...a Fajita Taco..no Cheese, No S. Cream...the tortilla maybe the size of a dessert plate...

But did I handle that correctly?? Guesstimating that way??
Do you ever find yourself in that situation? How do you handle it??

I know that in the future my calorie limit will lower and I wont have many of these types of encounters...But it could work the same if you are eating at a friends or family members house...would you say...umm hey did you safe all the packages to make this casserole so that I can calculate the calories?? Are their times that you just make due with what you can??

Sometimes all you can do is guesstimate. Put it behind you and move on.

I try to get the best estimate that I can, even looking up recipes and plugging them into FitDay if it's going to be something that I eat more than once. Honestly though, I don't sweat it. If I have a meal out, I know that my eating needs to be right on plan for the rest of the day (or week, depending on the meal out!) and try my best to account for the calorie intake of that meal.

I guess as best I can and let it be. I decided that I can't be complete strict on everything or else I will give up. I do however get back on the "healthy track" the next day where I can eat the foods I can count correctly.

Yep. Sometimes the best we can do is estimate.

Technically, all we're doing is estimating all day long.... This cup of yogurt I'm eating might have 120 calories (as it says), but it might have 125... or 115...

Nothing is 100% accurate, it's just as close as we can measure.

Now! I'm NOT advocating for estimating EVERYTHING we eat without reading labels or measuring. No no no. I'm merely saying that there are times when we can really only rely on our best guess.

We then write it down, put it behind us, and move forward =)

I had a cancun burrito last night and the restaurant website claims 580-ish. That was chicken and had guacamole with a low carb wrap but i'm skeptical that the calories were right!

You did the right thing in choosing the highest burrito on the list, unless i make them at home i know that they have a high calorie count with all those ingredients.

I'm not new to calorie counting, i lost almost 100 lbs in the last few years by counting calories etc. Unfortunately, i gained it back plus about 30 lbs more! So this time, i intend to be strict but not to restrict the things i crave, i'm just learning to eat them in healthier ways or by having ONE portion of something and not the whole thing lol

I think that is the most important thing to think...YES, I can have the serving size of Blah Blah Blah, but NO I can't have the whole carton.

I am sure the reason I failed all other "Diets" is because I went in with all of the rules and restrictions. If I followed them, I would lose weigh, but the week I stopped following I would go back to the carton instead of the Serving Size. So now, even if Im eating my ice cream out of a measuring cup, I am learning what I should have learned a long long time ago...

Better late than never.

I used to just take the whole back of pistachios or w/e to my recliner and mindlessly dump them i my mouth until i'd see how low the bag was. Now i am counting out the 49 (and making dang sure all the nuts are in the shells lol) in the kitchen and just taking those with me to snack on.

Speaking of food, i am hungry!

I agree with everyone that guesstimating is the best you can do in this situation.

I'd just add that I eat out more than I should, and so I've worked at training myself (at home) to recognize amounts--a cup of rice, a half cup of sour cream, an ounce of grated cheese, etc.--so that when I'm out, I can guesstimate each ingredient. (All I mean by training myself is that when I cook or put a meal together, I don't just measure and dump, I measure and then spend a minute looking at the cup of rice to try to get its size in my mind; sometimes I'll divide it in half to get a good look at a half versus a whole cup, etc.)

I guess I might sound a bit obsessive, but I really think I need to accept that eating out is a part of my lifestyle I can't quite give up, and I need to learn how to make restaurant meals really fit. I don't want to be fooling myself that I'm eating less than I really am, so I try to make my guesstimate as accurate as I can.

Bit of a different opinion here - I think a guesstimate is enough for most things. I think stressing about 50 cals here or there is not neccessary - as long as you have a handle on portion control, and don't kid yourself that you are eating half a cup of something and its actually2 cups - then don't stress....

Thank You all soooo much!!! I am really working hard at lowering my calories and really watching what I put in my mouth. I am not taking anything away, just being more observant.

I cant tell you how many times I have grabbed a bag of chips and French onion dip to snack on...then notice that half the container of dip is gone. I had to have eaten 1,000s of calories and never even thought twice about it.

I am trying to eat healthier, but I will not stop eating what I like. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE mexican food. I am just going to have to be aware of what I eat, and document everything. So that I know I have the available calories to indulge on what I want.

For the last week, I have served everything that I've eaten out of measuring cups and spoons. I honestly don't think they've ever been used as much as I've used them this week. I agree that we do need to train out eye on what an actual serving of something is. I know they say a deck of cards and all that, but really when your plate is 12 inches round and you have all that open space to fill it can get hard to know how much is appropriate. I am even thinking about going out and buying smaller dishes. It is sad to put your 1/2 cup cereal into a bowl that could easily fit 5x that much. makes you think you need to add more...so for now I am eating out of measuring cups and when in doubt noting the highest calories there are...