The Art of Guesstimating
Why Learning to Guess When Eating Out Improves Tracking Accuracy
In the world of fitness and nutrition, the debate over the accuracy of tracking food intake is common. When client and coach Chris DeHollander asked, "What's the point of tracking when eating out if you can't track it accurately?" We knew it was a topic worth exploring. Let's discuss the importance of accuracy, share a real-life example, and examine how guesstimating can be a game-changer.
The Real-Life Scenario
Picture this: a newlywed client diligently tracked every meal except for the two weekly date nights with her husband. These evenings were filled with rich, indulgent dishes like crab rangoon pizza and pork green chili nachos. The excuse? They were too challenging to track accurately. Enter the art of guesstimating.
Over two months, we practiced the skill of estimating portions, and the results were surprising. Her weekly calorie average increased by 200 calories, not because she was eating more, but because we could now catalog her intake more closely. This newfound precision allowed us to redistribute calories throughout the week and customize her dining-out options to align with her goals. At EPN, we emphasize balancing living life and tracking data, teaching clients to own the data, not be owned by it.
Let's Define Accuracy
The biggest challenge for people new to tracking food arises when dining out. It's straightforward at home with a food scale, but what about ordering a crab rangoon pizza with no scale, no ingredient list, and no way to achieve perfect tracking? Many end up skipping tracking altogether for such meals.
We're not advocating 24/7/365 tracking, but if you aim to use weekly data to make informed decisions to adjust your macro targets, tracking as much as possible is critical, even if it involves some guesstimating.
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll assume you eat three meals daily and weigh and measure each meal. Given that I hope no one is measuring their spinach to the gram, we’ll call a homemade meal 98% accurate.
Chart illustrating tracking 21 meals a week to 98% accuracy.
What does guesstimating or skipping do to data accuracy?:
What if I eat out twice a week and skip tracking those meals?
If you decide to eat out twice a week and skip tracking? Your data accuracy plummets to 88%.
Chart illustrating tracking 19 meals a week to 88% accuracy.
What if I eat out twice a week and guesstimate those meals?
Do you think you could guesstimate a meal within 70% accuracy (i.e., if it was a 1,000-calorie meal, would you likely estimate somewhere between 700 and 1300 calories)? Well, then congrats—you just increased your weekly data to 95% accuracy.
Chart illustrating tracking 19 meals a week, and guesstimating 2 meals, to 95% accuracy.
What if I go away for the weekend and skip tracking meals?
Visiting family? Doing a weekend getaway? Or a business trip? If you skip tracking six meals a week, weekly accuracy plummets to 70%.
Chart illustrating tracking 15 meals a week, and skipping 6 meals, to 70% accuracy.
What if I go away for the weekend and guesstimate?
Using the same within 30% accuracy guesstimating process, your weekly average accuracy can still be 90% even with a ton of travel!
Chart illustrating tracking 15 meals a week, and guestimating 6 meals, to 90% accuracy.
The Takeaway
One of the most overlooked tools in your food tracking toolbox is your ability to guesstimate meals out
If you have several partially tracked days and meals out skipped, know that your weekly average may be significantly skewed, and using that data to make a macro adjustment would not be advised
Learning to let go of perfection in tracking will help you in the long wrong to make better-informed decisions in understanding your maintenance calories
If you are in a specific phase with specific fat loss goals, even being at 90% accuracy may bump you out of your target calorie range. We recommend being judicious with guesstimating during these phases.
