I decided to count calories...help?
 

after getting some great feedback on this site, i decided i will use calorie counting as my plan.
i saw a poster (that lost nearly 100 pounds in 7 months) say she did a 1500 calorie plan.
so today i started counting, and 1500 is my goal.
let's just say, i think i'll be exceeding that today.
it adds up so quickly!!
hopefully in a few days i will adjust and be able to eat within 1500.

any advice?

Sure, eat lots of vegetables, eat lean meat like chicken and turkey, tuna, don't drink any calories, eat foods that are not processed or condensed, weigh everything with a digital scale, write everything in a journal, stay away from condiments and spreads, these are very high calorie low weight foods they won't satisfy you at all. Take the time to prepare and plan your meals to get the most of them, it also burns cals the preparation and cleanup.

Typically aim for high gram weight with low cals, not always easy but possible for a lot of foods. Eat a wide variety during the day, don't deprive yourself, just have smaller portions of higher cal food, stay away from sweets as much as possible. Drink a big glass of water with your meal, have a large salad before your smaller main meal, eat a little later to stave off getting hungry again. Keep busy and you will forget about food.


Think of it as retraining, we get fat because we don't know better, learn all you can about food, cals and what it is your body needs. It shouldn't be thought of as a diet, more like finally teaching yourself the ABC's of food.

Plan ahead. I plan my days meals ahead of time , takes me about 5 minutes to do the days menu. I know in the morning exactly what my meals for the day will be. If necessary I make changes just remembering to stay within my calorie allottment. It gets much easier to do this after you've been doing it for awhile.

great info...thanks!
i was wondering something, maybe you can help.
if i go for a brisk walk and burn 250 calories, does that mean i should eat all or some of those burned?
or is it ok not to eat calories i have burned?
i used to do weight watchers and i was able to eat activity points, so i'm wondering if this method is similar in that way.

When I cced, I had to eat at least half of those calories burned back in order to lose. You have to fuel your body.

I am doing calorie counting also :carrot: Just starting again.....

My one piece of advice is to make sure the 1500 is enough. I am not sure how much you currently weigh, depending on your current weight 1500 cal could be very difficult to stick with. You may want to check out Livestrong, ************, or other sites fo get an idea of how many calories to take in.


With the exercise, I have heard different things. The one piece of advice is to not go below 1200 calories. So if you are at 1500 and exercise 500, you should eat 200 to be back in the 1200 calories range....

I am not an expert with the exercise and calorie counting yet, so hopefully someone else will chime in.

Also :welcome:

When i started counting i was around 400 lbs my BMR was around 3000, i could not do a whole lot of exercise so i set an 1800 cal a day limit, it wasn't written in stone though, i probably averaged around 2000 a day, i've lost, last i weighed 177 lbs, hopefully after my weekend i will see closer to 180, anyways, typically nowadays i try to aim for around 2400 while my BMR is 2000, really it depends on how much you are doing and how you feel your bodies wants, yesterday i would venture to guess i burned 5000 cals 2400 was not cutting it at all so i had around 3200.

I am still losing weight as recently calculated at the rate of 15 lbs a month or a little more than a pound every two days on average ( or if you like around 1800cal deficit per day ), i don't have far to go now, truly it's not that hard to figure out what you probably are burning vs what you should be eating then figuring in a deficit, won't be perfect but after a little trial and effort you will figure it out.

1500 is good depending on your weight. I eat around 1400-1500 a day now but when I started I was eating around 1800 calories a day :)

If I go below 1200 I stop losing- my body just holds on it's super annoying!

you guys are all soooo helpful.
thank you!

It wont add up fast if you eat lower calories things :) like I switched from white bread to wheat, lower calorie lunch meat, more fruit, and veggies, lower calories snacks, etc. you can make it work and never drink your calories I only drink water thats it I need my calories for my food.

One piece of advice: Don't drink your calories. That's where a lot of people get hung up. They set a certain calorie limit, and then forget to include the Crystal Lights, juices etc that they consume. Right now, I drink mainly 1 cup of orange juice with breakfast, and then water the rest of the day. On the weekends, I treat myself to a few (not many) 100 calorie cans of Coke if I feel like it. Otherwise, it's water.

As much as it looks tempting and easy, don't fall into the pit of buying those Lean Cuisine or other frozen meals regularly. Once in a while isn't bad, but I personally found that for 300-400 calories, they still didn't fill me up.

Do look for low calorie but highly filling foods for snacks. One of my favorite snacks is a package of frozen edemame from Costco (they come in a box) that contains 100 calories. It takes about 15-20 min to eat them because there are SO many. And they're filling.

Enjoy fruit, but don't go too over board right now on it. I do more vegetables than fruit because I feel vegetables fill me up more.

And once you have a set number (1500, 1800,whatever) make sure you're reaching it. Don't eyeball that peanut butter, measure it out into a tablespoon to be sure. Little extra calories add up and soon, at the end of the day, you may have added on 100 or more calories just by not measuring.

I also found it's helpful to plan your meals out a day in advance. When I get home from work around midnight, I sit down for about 10 minutes and write down in a Wordpad what my next day will look at. Breakfast, morning snack, before dinner snack, lunch/dinner, evening snack, bedtime snack (if the calories allow). This way I stay on schedule and on goal. :)

Oh, and because I work an incredibly sedentary job that really doesn't require you to get up at all in 8 hours, my calories are 1400 and under, but no lower than 1000. I also know I have a very slow metabolism, so anything higher would just make me gain weight.

This is SO key! Thanks for the reminder!

You don't mention your height/weight, so it's hard to judge. When I started, i was 320 pounds, and I'm 5'8 and SUPER SEDENTARY and could still lose on 1800 cals a day. Those stupid calories add up FAST don't they????

I can't stress enough the importance of a good kitchen scale, and measuring cups!!! I thought a cup of grapes was all the grapes in the world LOL not so much ~ or a chicken breast was a serving - turns out the ones i was eating were about 10 oz LOL twice as much as I needed!! nutty!

Once you get your head around crazy portion sizes, I think it's easier. Eat lots of fibre to help fill you up :)

WHen you need something, chew some gum or brush your teeth or drink water, a change in your mouth environment is all the shake up you need :D

did i just say 'mouth environment'??WTF??

Ahahaha!! :lol:

Oh man that was funny.

I have been lurking again the last month reading up on posts. I have found for a fact in the past when I am more active on here I lose weight.

Time to get focused on me again.