How do you total your calories?

[beachball_diva]

Do you keep your exercise and food calories seperate, or do you total your food calories and then subtract your exercise calories from that? I'm not sure which I am supposed to be doing. Thanks :-)

[Ilene]

Hi Beachball :wave:, I see you're a faily new poster, so welcome to 3FC...

How do you count your calories? I go to fitday.com, it's free and this program does it all for you...

HTH...

[LilDudesMomma]

I count mine using myfooddiary.com its $9 and I personally find it better than fitday

[oliviacw]

I use a program called balancelog (http://www.healthetech.com). I like it because it works on my Palm, and I can enter things throughout the day and then synch it up with my computer when I get home.

I keep my food calories separate from my exercise - I try to get a certain amount of exercise, but as of yet don't use exercise as a reason to eat more (because I'm not doing anything really intensive - just walking). If it turned out that I was hiking all day and burning zillions of calories, I would adjust, but I've already accounted for a certain amount of activity in my daily calories, and I've never significantly exceeded that.

[Ilene]

but as of yet don't use exercise as a reason to eat more (because I'm not doing anything really intensive - just walking). If it turned out that I was hiking all day and burning zillions of calories, I would adjust, but I've already accounted for a certain amount of activity in my daily calories, and I've never significantly exceeded that.I never use exercise as a reason to eat more, it just ends up sabotaging my weightloss. I feel that unless you are an athlete and/or doing marathons you don't need to eat more because you've done some exercising or exercise more because you've eaten too much. In the end, for the average person (like me and most of us here) the equation is ''calories in + calories out (exercise) = weightloss

[SusanB]

I'm another vote for fitday.com.
And as for exercise ... I use it to broaden the gap between what I eat and what I burn. The calorie deficit that people talk about.

[tampagirlcmb]

Vote #something for FITDAY.COM. Just discovered it and I love it....and it's free.

[beachball_diva]

Thanks for the recommendation, I have been keeping track in a notebook, the site definitely has some bells and whistles!!

[SusanB]

The nice thing about a notebook is that you can take it anywhere. I use a notebook too. A kinda journal/diary .... there's more about exercise in it.

[penpal]

Hi,

I'm doing Nutridiary and it's working out great. I tried Fitday for quite a while, but I find Nutridiary is easier to use (imo).

I think keeping a food diary is essential for me as I tend to WAY underestimate how many calories I've eaten. :goodluck:

[flipafart]

I keep it separated

[lucky]

I also track my calorie intake using Fitday. I log my exercise as well but only as a means of keeping up with what workout I did on any given day. My only consideration in my overall calorie intake is the food that I eat. Any calories burned during exercise are just gravy.

[choirgeek]

hey there. I'm new at this, but I tend to stick to an intake goal AND a net goal. i find that if I allow myself a way to "make up" for slip-ups, I get less depressed about it. so if I go over my intake goal by 200 or so, I can think "this is okay, I can burn if off" instead of "oh crap the day's a mess...why not eat more". it keeps me in check.

[blues4miles]

I keep track of just the calories I've eaten, how much you burn off can be very subjective I think and I'd rather think of exercise as something that keeps me healthy not something associated with my eating. I print up little monthly calendars and keep them next to my PC, I try to write in each item I eat throughout the day then add up total at the end or the next day. They do say that you're only supposed to average your goal, but I like to make sure I stay at or under a certain number. I think though for different people it can vary, some function better with more restrictions others with less, so go with what works for you.

[mandy71480]

I'm one of the fitday users and I keep them separate. I don't believe in eating your exercise calories. To me, it defeats the whole purpose.

[Lessa123]

I use fitday as well. I try to stay within 1200 - 1600 calories per day. I do plug my exercise into fitday, but I just do that to make sure I've burned more than I've eaten. I have to agree with Mandy, eating the calories you've burned exercising seems to defeat the purpose!