How do you count your calories? Looking for tips and suggestions.
June 19, 2022 8:34 AM Subscribe
I just realized that my weight would be under control if I could just friggin' count calories all the time. How do YOU do it? What are YOUR tricks and strategies?
It's actually not that hard when you're eating brand-name grocery items all the time, since they're all logged into MyFitnessPal. (I don't a ton of fresh items since I'm single and don't want to have to eat the same thing a week in a row before everything goes bad, but I do throw in a tomato here and there and love eggs.)
But I get invited to receptions a lot, like after church or music events, and I don't want to spend an hour hunting for an equivalent of "one cracker with hummus and maybe 1/3 tablespoon of butter, wait that might be margarine I'm not sure, and the hummus is homemade and how many calories are in tahini?" And while restaurants are getting better about listing calories, not all of them do, and I can log the hamburger easily enough but then we get bread cut into big squares and I don't know what constitutes a "slice."
What are YOUR tips and tricks for calorie counting? Is there some great chart on the internet that you use? I'm not looking to be obsessive-compulsive about this for the rest of my life, but at the moment I would really like to get an idea of how many calories are in everything, so that I can manage it well enough when I wonder if it's ok to have dessert. Thank you!
It's actually not that hard when you're eating brand-name grocery items all the time, since they're all logged into MyFitnessPal. (I don't a ton of fresh items since I'm single and don't want to have to eat the same thing a week in a row before everything goes bad, but I do throw in a tomato here and there and love eggs.)
But I get invited to receptions a lot, like after church or music events, and I don't want to spend an hour hunting for an equivalent of "one cracker with hummus and maybe 1/3 tablespoon of butter, wait that might be margarine I'm not sure, and the hummus is homemade and how many calories are in tahini?" And while restaurants are getting better about listing calories, not all of them do, and I can log the hamburger easily enough but then we get bread cut into big squares and I don't know what constitutes a "slice."
What are YOUR tips and tricks for calorie counting? Is there some great chart on the internet that you use? I'm not looking to be obsessive-compulsive about this for the rest of my life, but at the moment I would really like to get an idea of how many calories are in everything, so that I can manage it well enough when I wonder if it's ok to have dessert. Thank you!
IMHO, record everything you eat (video or photo), and assign a value to each and every item. At least get a picture of the bread so you have an idea of size and you can estimate calories, for example.
I'm almost tempted to carry a bodycam "just because", sometimes. :) It's more of a... "life cam"?
posted by kschang at 8:44 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm almost tempted to carry a bodycam "just because", sometimes. :) It's more of a... "life cam"?
posted by kschang at 8:44 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I use Nutracheck, which is like My Fitness Pal but I’ve always found it much more user-friendly (I think it’s maybe a UK app but might have a US version).
But essentially for the circumstances you describe, I just guess. I’m not bad at guessing the weight of things these days and so can just enter 100g of bread or something. I might make buffet selections based slightly on what’s easier to count, or might eg. dip carrot sticks in my hummous rather than bread because they have so few calories it doesn’t really matter if I count them and I can always have a slice of regular toast to fill up on later at home if I’m hungry again later. Nutracheck includes quite a few generic restaurant meals eg “Pub fish and chips” which can help.
Sometimes I’ll have a day of just not counting if I’ve eaten uncountable things, as long as it’s not all the time.
posted by penguin pie at 8:51 AM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
But essentially for the circumstances you describe, I just guess. I’m not bad at guessing the weight of things these days and so can just enter 100g of bread or something. I might make buffet selections based slightly on what’s easier to count, or might eg. dip carrot sticks in my hummous rather than bread because they have so few calories it doesn’t really matter if I count them and I can always have a slice of regular toast to fill up on later at home if I’m hungry again later. Nutracheck includes quite a few generic restaurant meals eg “Pub fish and chips” which can help.
Sometimes I’ll have a day of just not counting if I’ve eaten uncountable things, as long as it’s not all the time.
posted by penguin pie at 8:51 AM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've done it on and off over the last 10 years, and at first I was using MyFitnessPal but last year switched to Cronometer.
The trick for me in not making myself obsess was to accept that some of it was going to be approximate, and then figure out ways to make good guesses. And I try to overestimate how many calories are in whatever I'm eating.
One thing to realize is that a "slice" of bread is not an exact measurement, right, because slices are all different slices, and different kinds of bread can have wildly different calorie counts. So for bread, for example, I just decided to use some standard multigrain slice in Cronometer, and then adjust the portion size based on my best guess. If a thick square shared with the table, maybe that's 1.5 slices. One of the things I like about Cronometer is that it offers a variety of different measurements (servings, oz, grams, etc), so you can use whatever suits you most.
But really, though, the key is to just understand that it's never going to be an exact science.
posted by Gorgik at 9:19 AM on June 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
The trick for me in not making myself obsess was to accept that some of it was going to be approximate, and then figure out ways to make good guesses. And I try to overestimate how many calories are in whatever I'm eating.
One thing to realize is that a "slice" of bread is not an exact measurement, right, because slices are all different slices, and different kinds of bread can have wildly different calorie counts. So for bread, for example, I just decided to use some standard multigrain slice in Cronometer, and then adjust the portion size based on my best guess. If a thick square shared with the table, maybe that's 1.5 slices. One of the things I like about Cronometer is that it offers a variety of different measurements (servings, oz, grams, etc), so you can use whatever suits you most.
But really, though, the key is to just understand that it's never going to be an exact science.
posted by Gorgik at 9:19 AM on June 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
I figure an oz of bread is around 100 calories, which Weight Watchers calls "a small dinner roll." A crappy slice of packaged white bread is around 75 calories. So that's how I estimate bread. A tablespoon of olive oil is ~120 calories, a tablespoon of butter is 100 calories, so you get the picture there on fats. Etc. Just look up a few instances of the thing you're eating and you'll be able to figure out an approximation.
Also-- the bad news -- is that some foods that are a caloric mystery, well, you shouldn't eat them if you want to make sure you don't gain weight from them. Or have a few bites, and get most of your calories from food you can figure out.
posted by DMelanogaster at 9:26 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also-- the bad news -- is that some foods that are a caloric mystery, well, you shouldn't eat them if you want to make sure you don't gain weight from them. Or have a few bites, and get most of your calories from food you can figure out.
posted by DMelanogaster at 9:26 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
The benefit of just about any diet regimen is that it makes you pay attention to what you're eating. When I'm counting calories I just make a good guess about non-packaged food (paying extra attention to sauces) while recognizing that the real action is that I'm not constantly eating large portions and noshing at random. That far outweighs a few calories unaccounted for.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on June 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on June 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
When I hitch on to the calorie-counting wagon, for the first little bit I do a pretty thorough job of measuring portions, even when it's food I'm cooking myself. It's a good way to train my eye and get good at guessing. If a hummus serving is .25 c, then a cracker with hummus is about .25 of that serving, etc.
The other thing that helps me is creating recipes. My breakfast smoothies are all pretty similar - frozen fruit (1 c) a handful of greens (1 c), a sploosh of almond milk (1 c), and a glob of yogurt (.25 c), so that is my smoothie recipe. If I switch out the greens, or am +/- in my eyeballing the ingredients on any given day, its close enough.
For me, even being off a couple of hundred calories is not a huge deal. It's more watching how I'm trending and being aware of what I'm eating.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:44 AM on June 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
The other thing that helps me is creating recipes. My breakfast smoothies are all pretty similar - frozen fruit (1 c) a handful of greens (1 c), a sploosh of almond milk (1 c), and a glob of yogurt (.25 c), so that is my smoothie recipe. If I switch out the greens, or am +/- in my eyeballing the ingredients on any given day, its close enough.
For me, even being off a couple of hundred calories is not a huge deal. It's more watching how I'm trending and being aware of what I'm eating.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:44 AM on June 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
I find the best solution is to cook several dishes at home and freeze them in portions so you're not eating the same thing every day. Stews, curries, casseroles, and baked goods generally freeze well. That way you can calculate the calories in the total dish and divide by the number of portions.
When you're at a reception, don't eat from the buffet other than fresh veggies/fruits. Bring a small snack of known calories if you're going straight from work, or just eat dinner at home first so you're not hungry.
For restaurants, same thing. Have something small and not fried, like a lean protein, and have something else at home later if you're still hungry. Keep in mind most traditional American restaurant entrées are around 900-1100 calories. Obviously this isn't always the case, but even 'healthy' options are often high in calories and fat compared to home cooked versions because, well, that makes food taste good and the restaurant wants you to enjoy it so you'll come back again.
And to the above points, yeah, calories are approximations. But getting a better sense of how much to eat in a day is undeniably useful in weight management.
posted by ananci at 9:51 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
When you're at a reception, don't eat from the buffet other than fresh veggies/fruits. Bring a small snack of known calories if you're going straight from work, or just eat dinner at home first so you're not hungry.
For restaurants, same thing. Have something small and not fried, like a lean protein, and have something else at home later if you're still hungry. Keep in mind most traditional American restaurant entrées are around 900-1100 calories. Obviously this isn't always the case, but even 'healthy' options are often high in calories and fat compared to home cooked versions because, well, that makes food taste good and the restaurant wants you to enjoy it so you'll come back again.
And to the above points, yeah, calories are approximations. But getting a better sense of how much to eat in a day is undeniably useful in weight management.
posted by ananci at 9:51 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I am doing this, I use the food tracker in Fitbit. They will often have what I’ve looking for — either “generic roast beef sub” or “Subway roast beef sub,” etc. If I can’t get something of the specific type, I look for a close-ish substitution and add some calories, depending on what I can figure out in terms of toppings, add-ons, etc. I have gotten better at estimating over time, but if I can count on anything, it’s that premade/restaurant food is going to have more calories than I make at home.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:54 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:54 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I lost a bunch of weight 4 years ago by counting calories and am doing it again now. I find apps too tedious and prefer to record my intake in a Moleskine notebook that I carry in my hip pocket. All foods need to be measured (kitchen/postal scale) and recorded before eating. You have to be meticulous: study have shown that most people vastly underestimate how much they eat.
As for what to eat: vegetables, vegetables, vegetables--one cup servings of two different vegetables at eat meal. Small servings of meat (3 oz). Fruit (e.g. half a banana but berries are less glycemic). Nuts are an important source of healthy fat and help curb appetite but are calorie-dense so be careful with them. My breakfast is an egg white omelette made with a cup of veggies and a half slice of cheese, plus one kiwi on the side, and sometimes a piece of turkey sausage.
Vegetables I mostly saute in a minimum of oil from a pump sprayer. I coat the skillet, dump in my vegetables, spray the veggies on top, add seasoning and stir. It amounts to about 2 grams (18 calories) of oil. Don't overcook--remember that almost any vegetable is perfectly good raw.
Weight yourself every day at the same time.
As for exercise, strength training is far more effective for weight loss than aerobic exercise.
posted by neuron at 10:17 AM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
As for what to eat: vegetables, vegetables, vegetables--one cup servings of two different vegetables at eat meal. Small servings of meat (3 oz). Fruit (e.g. half a banana but berries are less glycemic). Nuts are an important source of healthy fat and help curb appetite but are calorie-dense so be careful with them. My breakfast is an egg white omelette made with a cup of veggies and a half slice of cheese, plus one kiwi on the side, and sometimes a piece of turkey sausage.
Vegetables I mostly saute in a minimum of oil from a pump sprayer. I coat the skillet, dump in my vegetables, spray the veggies on top, add seasoning and stir. It amounts to about 2 grams (18 calories) of oil. Don't overcook--remember that almost any vegetable is perfectly good raw.
Weight yourself every day at the same time.
As for exercise, strength training is far more effective for weight loss than aerobic exercise.
posted by neuron at 10:17 AM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Actually measuring everything at home for a while will give you a better understanding of serving sizes. I like a scale.
I've used MyFitnessPal for years and there are a lot of generic recipes in there? So, honestly quite often I would just, say, search for "lasagna" and choose one that looks about right; often I will put in an extra half-serving over what I think I'm eating and/or add an extra tablespoon of butter for a restaurant meal. This is after doing it for a long time and having a good sense of volumes/serving sizes, though.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 10:29 AM on June 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've used MyFitnessPal for years and there are a lot of generic recipes in there? So, honestly quite often I would just, say, search for "lasagna" and choose one that looks about right; often I will put in an extra half-serving over what I think I'm eating and/or add an extra tablespoon of butter for a restaurant meal. This is after doing it for a long time and having a good sense of volumes/serving sizes, though.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 10:29 AM on June 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I used My Fitness Pal and probably will again soon. One thing it got me to do was to buy bulk things more often and to use portion sizes. I bought a food scale to make calculation easier and started finding out stuff like that a little dish of 2oz of almonds was a good snack size and something that prevents idle munching.
So, the calories might not be perfect, but it helped me add structure and gaps to my diet. I tend to repeat meals a lot, so I got a lot of use from the feature to group combinations of items to add all at once.
posted by rhizome at 11:10 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
So, the calories might not be perfect, but it helped me add structure and gaps to my diet. I tend to repeat meals a lot, so I got a lot of use from the feature to group combinations of items to add all at once.
posted by rhizome at 11:10 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Having been on the roller coaster diet my entire life, I am enamored with the Lose It app. Their database of foods is immense and has helped me manage my daily intake of food, primarily with portion sizes. While I know it's not an exact number, it helps me quantify what's being eaten.
posted by kittygrandma at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kittygrandma at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was a HUGE calorie counter in the 90’s before my fitness pal etc so I had to use a huge dictionary, and study packets etc and I also took a nutrition class in college and learned how many calories were in a gram of fat, a carb and a protein. How much a serving of each looked like… so a serving of butter was 100 calories etc. I would hand calculate for recipes and meals. Eventually after a year or so I could eyeball something and ballpark the calories of restaurant food or things I hadn’t made myself within a very accurate range because I knew crackers of x type were x calories, a meal probably had x amount of oil etc. a quarter cup of sunflower seeds looks like how much… so that’s not obviously an easy way to do it but I would say it has served me well over the years and I can probably still do it. So I would say… learn a lot more about calories and how much fat and carbs go in to the foods you find outside the home.
posted by pairofshades at 11:47 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by pairofshades at 11:47 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I eat almost no processed foods so when I do this I mostly use a kitchen scale (wildly useful contraptions, really!) to get a better idea of how much something is or whether I'm eating an actual serving size of it or more. Often I just estimate and usually will round up if I'm in doubt. Eating out is tricky so I don't tend to do if it I am watching what I eat or else I eat things that are fairly predictable in what's in them or where I have some measure of control over how it's made.
The other thing is that I don't actually count vegetable calories pretty much ever. I count things that go ON the vegetables (dressings, oils, etc), yes, but I barely bother with adding the veg themselves to my calories counts, unless they are notably calorific, like potatoes (which is a starch, yes, but also a vegetable). I figure the worst negative of this approach is that I am going to fill up on vegetables, which, like, extremely oh no? More vitamins and nutrients and water? How terrible! It helps cut down on the finicky-ness of calorie counting.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:08 PM on June 19, 2022
The other thing is that I don't actually count vegetable calories pretty much ever. I count things that go ON the vegetables (dressings, oils, etc), yes, but I barely bother with adding the veg themselves to my calories counts, unless they are notably calorific, like potatoes (which is a starch, yes, but also a vegetable). I figure the worst negative of this approach is that I am going to fill up on vegetables, which, like, extremely oh no? More vitamins and nutrients and water? How terrible! It helps cut down on the finicky-ness of calorie counting.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:08 PM on June 19, 2022
Do you have a digital food scale? Logging food by weight is so much more consistent than by arbitrary measurements like "slice" or "serving" or even volume measures like cup or tbsp. Spend a week or two weighing your food and logging it to get a feel for how much you're currently eating at home and it should make it easier to estimate when you're not at home.
If you don't have a scale already, you can get one for under $20, just look for something with a variety of measurement options (oz, grams, lbs) and has a tare function so you can zero out the weight of your container. As urbanlenny mentioned, wildly useful!
posted by platinum at 12:11 PM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
If you don't have a scale already, you can get one for under $20, just look for something with a variety of measurement options (oz, grams, lbs) and has a tare function so you can zero out the weight of your container. As urbanlenny mentioned, wildly useful!
posted by platinum at 12:11 PM on June 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
I use a food scale, measuring cups and spoons. I use LoseIt to log. I'm one of those people who eats the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday, so that just leaves dinner. I tend to batch cook and then portion out. I like to put the recipes into LoseIt so I can just add it in one swoop.
posted by kathrynm at 12:37 PM on June 19, 2022
posted by kathrynm at 12:37 PM on June 19, 2022
I use Fooducate to track calories (not sure how it compares to My Fitness Pal). If you cook meals with multiple ingredients, there's an option to create meals in the app to add them quickly. Not going to lie, it's a pain to add all the ingredients the first time. If you make a lot of the same stuff repeatedly it gets easier. When I first started, I added all the ingredients in the whole batch as a serving, but later I switched to dividing all the ingredient amounts by how many servings I usually get out of the meal to make things easier later.
There's also a quick add calories option. If I'm eating something I didn't make, I Google the calories in it to get a reasonable estimate.
Fooducate also gives some information about percentages of carbs, fats and proteins in foods. They have articles to read about healthy eating that have actually been super helpful to me. They don't portray any gross or shaming attitudes about food in these articles and give a lot of really useful information.
posted by Eyelash at 1:43 PM on June 19, 2022
There's also a quick add calories option. If I'm eating something I didn't make, I Google the calories in it to get a reasonable estimate.
Fooducate also gives some information about percentages of carbs, fats and proteins in foods. They have articles to read about healthy eating that have actually been super helpful to me. They don't portray any gross or shaming attitudes about food in these articles and give a lot of really useful information.
posted by Eyelash at 1:43 PM on June 19, 2022
I use Cronometer. I found that estimating what I eat outside of the house got a lot easier once I started using a scale when I was cooking at home.
Although I've never used it, I imagine the concept like Weight Watchers has of zero points foods could be useful when out and about, to just allow yourself to have all the broccoli or popcorn or whatever that you want.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 1:52 PM on June 19, 2022
Although I've never used it, I imagine the concept like Weight Watchers has of zero points foods could be useful when out and about, to just allow yourself to have all the broccoli or popcorn or whatever that you want.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 1:52 PM on June 19, 2022
If you count calories for the foods that you do know regularly, it will teach you a little about how many calories are in what size foods. For example, if you know the calories for 5 brands of crackers and for a serving of 3 brands of hummus, you can guesstimate how much hummus and crackers you ate, since you now know what 2 Tbsp looks like from measuring it out at home. Same with cooked food. If you give cooking a chance and weigh all the ingredients, you'll have an idea of how much a small or large size plate of pasta with red sauce or Alfredo sauce will set you back. And then overestimate, just in case, if you're trying to eat less calories and are (hopefully) finding yourself full.
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 5:42 PM on June 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 5:42 PM on June 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Calorie counting AND zone eating lost me 20lbs over Covid without exercise or being hungry.
Calorie ratio for zone is 40/30/30 carbs/protein/fat note this ratio is by calorie not by weight so you have to do some math at first (4cal per g of protein and carb but 9 calories per g of fat). Each meal needs to be zone balanced. It’s not overall per day but per each meal.
If you can futz with the math for like a week then it’ll click and you can eyeball from there. Yes I used a food scale and my fitness pal app. It was so easy.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:25 PM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Calorie ratio for zone is 40/30/30 carbs/protein/fat note this ratio is by calorie not by weight so you have to do some math at first (4cal per g of protein and carb but 9 calories per g of fat). Each meal needs to be zone balanced. It’s not overall per day but per each meal.
If you can futz with the math for like a week then it’ll click and you can eyeball from there. Yes I used a food scale and my fitness pal app. It was so easy.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:25 PM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I use Cronometer and a food scale to track my breakfast (which is the same every day) and lunch (not a lot of variety there, either). Then I look and see how I'm doing overall that day and just kind of wing snacks and dinner based on what I noticed, e.g. I should find more protein and fiber so I'll eat a bigger piece of chicken for dinner than I was originally going to. I don't bother measuring dinner.
I don't do this every day, because by now I know basically what my breakfast and lunch provide me. My nutritional goals aren't around weight loss, so maybe I can be more loosey goosey than you can.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:41 PM on June 19, 2022
I don't do this every day, because by now I know basically what my breakfast and lunch provide me. My nutritional goals aren't around weight loss, so maybe I can be more loosey goosey than you can.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:41 PM on June 19, 2022
Mod note: Several deleted. This question isn't hard to understand: if you count calories, what are your tips? If you don't, that's fine, but your ideas about not counting calories aren't helpful for answering this question. Other weight loss techniques aren't helpful for this question. Please focus on answering this question. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:49 PM on June 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 10:49 PM on June 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
You can count calories without being obsessive about it. It has definitely worked for me. The key is not to give yourself some ridiculously low target. When I was losing I let myself have 1600-1700 a day, with 1- 2 days off, and now that I'm maintaining it's more like 1800-1900 with 1-2 days off. HOwever, my habits have changed over time and a 'day off' now isn't the same as how I used to eat.
I use 'Easy Diet Diary' which allows you to add your own foods to it. I basically built up a bank of foods over time and that covers most of what I eat on any given day. It also allows you to create full recipes and put in your own serving sizes of your own recipes. Yep it is a lot of work at the start but it definitely gets easier as you build your foods/recipes up in the app.
At first, I had to measure everything to find out the approx calories in things like, say, flour. However, now I just estimate it. It helps that I'm maintaining now so it is not so necessary to be strict.
I wouldn't worry about getting it too exact - as someone else has said, the point is that it makes you think about what you eat more. I just accepted that it was likely to get me to within 100 cals or so of accuracy.
posted by thereader at 10:57 PM on June 19, 2022
I use 'Easy Diet Diary' which allows you to add your own foods to it. I basically built up a bank of foods over time and that covers most of what I eat on any given day. It also allows you to create full recipes and put in your own serving sizes of your own recipes. Yep it is a lot of work at the start but it definitely gets easier as you build your foods/recipes up in the app.
At first, I had to measure everything to find out the approx calories in things like, say, flour. However, now I just estimate it. It helps that I'm maintaining now so it is not so necessary to be strict.
I wouldn't worry about getting it too exact - as someone else has said, the point is that it makes you think about what you eat more. I just accepted that it was likely to get me to within 100 cals or so of accuracy.
posted by thereader at 10:57 PM on June 19, 2022
I used to use MyFitnessPal (for decades) and about 6 months ago I switched over to MacroFactor which might be useful for your use case. In addition to a database that's verified for accuracy it recalculates your calorie budget based on what you log and how your weight is shifting. So say you have a calorie budget of 2000 and you log, based on your best guesses what you've eaten 1800 calories every day for a week but your weight trends up anyway. It will reduce your calorie budget and see what happens the next week.
This seems like a good feature for your use case because as long as you're being fairly consistent in your estimates of what / how much you're eating when you're out it will shift the budget around until your weight is trending in the direction you want it to.
It does depend on logging food and tracking your weight daily (or at least most days) so that doesn't work for everyone but it's been working for me and I have to estimate food / amount for at least a couple of meals a week.
posted by macfly at 10:49 AM on June 20, 2022
This seems like a good feature for your use case because as long as you're being fairly consistent in your estimates of what / how much you're eating when you're out it will shift the budget around until your weight is trending in the direction you want it to.
It does depend on logging food and tracking your weight daily (or at least most days) so that doesn't work for everyone but it's been working for me and I have to estimate food / amount for at least a couple of meals a week.
posted by macfly at 10:49 AM on June 20, 2022
I made a spreadsheet that solves Harris-Benedict / Basal Metabolic Rate for men and women here, and lists nutrition values for some of my favorite foods. When I'm counting calories, this is how I do it. Don't push harder than 1 pound per week on/off if you want to keep it, and note that while the protein warning isn't, like, dire it is something to keep in mind and read up on.
This is probably an uglier frontend on exactly what most of the fitness apps are doing in their meal planning section, but I like having something simple built from the standard nutrition formulas, and this is that.
posted by Ryvar at 3:27 PM on June 20, 2022
This is probably an uglier frontend on exactly what most of the fitness apps are doing in their meal planning section, but I like having something simple built from the standard nutrition formulas, and this is that.
posted by Ryvar at 3:27 PM on June 20, 2022
Response by poster: These are all very helpful, thank you!
posted by Melismata at 7:47 AM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 7:47 AM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have done calorie counting twice, the first time via MyFitnessPal, and this time with MacroFactor.
As calorie counting software, MacroFactor has a lot of cool features, and is a much easier app to use than MyFitnessPal, but it isn’t free. Message me if you are interested, and I think if I refer you it gets you a two week free trial instead of one.
Lots of really great tips for how to use calorie counting above.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 7:18 AM on June 26, 2022
As calorie counting software, MacroFactor has a lot of cool features, and is a much easier app to use than MyFitnessPal, but it isn’t free. Message me if you are interested, and I think if I refer you it gets you a two week free trial instead of one.
Lots of really great tips for how to use calorie counting above.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 7:18 AM on June 26, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
one thing I do is use this site. it is far from perfect and relies a lot on name brand stuff, but like, if you want to know the calories (and fiber etc) in an apple, boom, it will tell you.
posted by supermedusa at 8:42 AM on June 19, 2022 [1 favorite]