Help me estimate the calories in this lunch?

[kokosnuss]

I generally eat the same thing for lunch every day at work and am starting counting calories so want to estimate calories in it.

It's a Mexican salad consisting of:

Bed of plain salad (leaves/tomatoes/cucumber)
Serving spoon of boiled rice
Serving spoon of beans
Serving spoon of roasted mediterranean veg
Sprinkling of grated cheese
Tablespoon of guacamole

No idea where to start!

Bed of plain salad (leaves/tomatoes/cucumber) = 10
Serving spoon of boiled rice = 50
Serving spoon of beans = 50
Serving spoon of roasted mediterranean veg = 50
Sprinkling of grated cheese = 100
Tablespoon of guacamole = 50

Obviously depends what a serving spoon is - do you mean a tablespoon, or a large serving spoon?

Best thing is MFP for this, weigh your food.

You need to weigh out the ingredients and either check the packaging for calories or use My Fitness Pal if you want to be accurate. My “serving spoon” might be a lot bigger/smaller than your, the only way to work it out is by weight. I know it might seem tedious but if you eat it often at least you’ll know for sure.

I would guess between 3 and 4 hundred but it really depends on actual amounts and which guac/rice/beans used and how the veg is cooked (in oil/ dry roasted/ in fry lite..etc)

Sorry I should have said this is the work canteen so I'm not making it so can't weigh!

By serving spoon I mean a big spoon - like you would use to stir food in a pan or serve hot food.

A serving spoon and a sprinkling mean nothing, I’m afraid. You need to weigh the ingredients to figure it out. It’s a pain but it works. (Much as I hate it.)

That could be 200 calories in the rice and 200 in the beans alone. If you’re looking for weight loss, rice and beans really is t the way to go about it. They are so carb-heavy.

Canteen sizes portions will be more along the 200-300 per spoon I would imagine, plus the veg will likely have been roasted in lots of oil, etc. So a lot more than you might think unfortunately.

Could easily be a fair few calories in that meal!

Rice & beans could be 200-300 for a serving spoon
Veg has no doubt been roasted in a lot of oil and that will bump the calories up
The salad bits won’t be a lot
What’s a sprinkling of cheese? Depends how big the sprinkle was!

This lunch is probably no where near as healthy as you imagined. Canteen must do other options OR drop the rice on your salad but keep the beans to cut down the calories

I would estimate at about 400 calories