When I started, for a few weeks, I wrote everything I ate down in a booklet and entered the calories on this Dutch website, www.caloriechecker.nl. Now I've got a pretty good feeling for how many calories things I eat often are, and every week or so I enter a day in it to check. That often shows I'm eating too little calories .
Try carrying a folded up piece of paper in your purse or pocket to write stuff down on.
I do that all day, and then when I get a chance I enter it all on dailyplate.com
It has made the whole counting thing easier.
I use dailyplate, though I know you said that didn't work for you. But I just wanted to say, you really should figure something out, and actually track them. About a month ago, I thought I had enough of a grasp on this whole calorie counting thing to estimate in my head threw out the day so I stopped inputting my food into dailyplate. I stopped for 2 weeks and did not lose a single darn pound! I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, so I started back on dailyplate after a two week vacation. I've been back on dailyplate for 6 days now and i've already dropped from the 193 I was stuck at to 189. :-) Just wanted to share... It really made me realize how important it is to do more then just calculate in your head. Hope you find something that works for you!
i write down everything in my cellphone. I can even schedule eating time and what to eat by cellphone. It's a nice thing and i always have it by my side. Convenient ^^ and then, re-check calories later on internet or whatever (that is in case i'm not sure about them).
I have a binder at home with a formatted document I made in it, several hundred copies so I don't run out any time soon. I have an area where I enter my "plan of attack" with calorie counts, then a "reality check" where I write what I actually ate because I'm crap at sticking to my plan. Then I have space for adding things up, because adding in my head always results in dropped number and bad counts. Then I have an area to calculate my activity like cardio and strength training and an area to write some notes for the day, like weigh in, mood, water intake and such.
I've been using it since the begining of august and I love to look back at my journey, my struggles, my accomplishments. when I feel like I need serious motivation I can read back to a time when I was doing really great and get ideas. If you PM me your email addy I'll send you my word doc and you can use it.
I have never been good at journaling or writing it down (I'm incredibly disorganized), but I'm findind that I'm pretty good at using the Daily Plate. The thing is, I don't have to look up the calorie counts, I just search the database. Also, I know it may seem time consuming, but the only time consuming thing for me was creating my typical meals that wouldn't be in the database (the salads I have often, my favorite soups that I like to make, my smoothie, etc...)
So now I just click on the food, check the serving and it's done!
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