When counting calories and macros it can be a nightmare when foods have no nutritional information.
There is always a way to track calories and macros.
A SIMPLE SEARCH
Planning is always going to be KEY, the earlier you plan the better, if you know you are going out for a meal with the family, then I would advise accounting for this and adjusting your calories/macros to make allowance for it.
For example, you could move up 20% of your macros to one day, so that you have 120% of your normal, which means you need to subtract 20% from the rest of your week. Let's say your goal is normally 2000 calories and you plan to eat 2400 calories that day, that is OK, don't worry, just make sure the next couple of days you eat 1800, so that over the week you still average out 14,000 calories.
Focus on Calories and Protein
Don't worry too much about carbs and fats, instead focus on hitting protein and calories, this will give you much more flexibility.
When searching for the food you are going to have, it is KEY that you find the closest match possible. If you are eating out at a chain restaurant, they will most likely have their nutritional information on their site, I would recommend looking in advance to choose what you want, planning ahead is very important, and you can plan your day around it.
If you cannot find the exact item you are looking for you are going to have to make your BEST GUESS, if you go to your grandma's house and she baked some cookies, try to find an equivalent. For example, I recently went to 200 Degrees coffee shop with Selina and we shared a banana and chocolate loaf cake slice. In this instance I found a Starbucks one and used that to track it.
Split It Up
The meal you are eating may be made of several parts, for example, steak with chips and peas, in this scenario you would split up your meal and find an equivalent for each food. If I go to a restaurant that doesn't have the calories on their site, I always try make my life easier, for example, last night I went to Turtle Bay with Selina, I ordered, Jerk Chicken breast (jerk sauce on the side), with rice and peas.
This was very easy to track, I just needed to find 3 ingredients, rice, kidney beans and chicken breast, I decided not to have the jerk sauce.
One thing I strongly advise is to always overestimate instead of underestimating.
Using the scales
If you are at home and you are going to eat food made by someone else, you can quite easily get the scales and weigh what you are about to eat, doing this will ensure it is more accurate, for example, if someone baked you a banana cake, find a banana cake on the Asda site, weigh it and use that as your macros, it will be there or thereabouts and by weighing it, it will be better than guessing.
Use you maths Skills
I don't cook very much, Selina does all the cooking and she is amazing at it, so how do we work around it? Well I am currently eating Chilli Con Carne, Selina just made, she made enough for 4 portions so that we can have it again for lunch tomorrow.
How do I track this?
Well, Selina will weigh every single ingredient raw and write it on a notepad, I then divide everything by 4 and it to Myfitnesspal one by one, this ensures that I eat amazing food and we can always eat as a family everyday.
Hope the above helps you towards your goals.
Coach HB