"My Net Diary" is the app my wife uses. I've been using "Fat Secret" (good app, awful name). I used to use MyFitnessPal
years ago when I had a free membership though a previous employer, but after it expired, I very quickly became frustrated by their aggressive marketing garbage.
Its become far less common for me to get takeout and I can't remember the last time I actually sat down to dine inside a restaurant, but I got into the habit of just finding a rough guess equivalent from the app's catalog the
first time I get something pre-made. On the
second time, I make myself go through the effort of looking up the nutrition facts to create a new catalog entry myself or I try to build a "recipe" of what I think are equivalent ingredients.
I used to eat a lot from this local family-owned Mediterranean restaurant, for example. They were small enough not to be required to post their nutrition facts. So, one day I took a careful look at my favorite order, mentally (and nearly physically) dissected it, and plugged in what I believed to be the ingredients to a custom recipe I could reuse with one tap. One 10" flour tortilla, a serving of feta and mozzarella, a serving of rotisserie chicken, a serving of pesto, and a serving of olive oil. Never had to think about it again after that!
I still get take-out a couple times a month from my favorite Venezuelan restaurant, though. They make arepas to die for. They're
also a local family-owned operation and have no facts posted. In their case, I took a more scientific approach. One day when I got home with my order, I pulled out a spare plate and
actually dissected my meal and used the food scale to understand what I was eating.
Originally this was with the intent of trying to cook my own at home, but after
numerous lackluster attempts, I resigned myself to failure and decided to just keep paying
them instead. On the bright side, I got some very precise inputs for my tracker app, and I learned that (at least in my massive sample size of
two) that their line cooks are very consistent in their preparation.
Being consistent with tracking is a constant struggle, but I've been doing it for a few years now, and at this point I've just ingrained it as part of my routine. It's never
not at least a mild nuisance, though.
When looking for low-cal snacks, another thing to think about is the effective satiety of what you're eating. Simple carbs feel great at first, but they'll lead to an insulin spike and leave you hungry again in a relatively short time. Complex carbs like whole-grain brown rice and especially foods high in fiber will leaving you feeling full for
much longer. Protein and fat are also excellent for satiety, but keep in mind that gram-for-gram fat carries twice as many calories as protein. I find a serving of greek yogurt to be an excellent snack in that category. On the veggies side, my wife likes a snack of baby carrots with hummus which is also well balanced with protein, fat, and fiber.