I've deciced that after a month of not losing more than 1lb I'm gonna start counting calories. I'm not really sure how to go about it though with things like dinner. How do you calculate how many calories are in something? Like tonight I'm having some white chili that I made but how do I know how many calories are in that? I looked for a recipe that is similar to what mine is and that one had 360 in it..should I just guess that is what is in mine or is there a good way to figure out exactly what is in mine?
I think I should be eating close to 1800 calories to lose weight but that seems a little high to me. I looked at a few different websites and they all say about the same thing.
There is a wonderful section for calorie counters. I post there often and get loads of info. I am a calorie counter as well. I love the idea that its flexible. Good luck!
Add up the calories of every ingredients of everything you put into your recipe and then divide it by servings. For items that don't have them listed, like chicken, you can go to a number of websits like calorie king and look up the calories. Good Luck! I have recently switched over to calorie counting but am having trouble figuring out how many calories to have. My doctor says 1200! I know people have also had success with zigzagging where you do different calorie totals on different days.
I am just now getting into it. I recently discovered the recipes section in Calorie Counters... AMAZING! I am making myself a shopping list! This is the poultry section - http://www.3fatchicks.com/diet-recip...trees/poultry/
I did LA before and felt too restricted. This way I think I won't feel like I am depriving myself like Samantha said.
As far as how many calories to eat.. I have had different sites tell me different things. One of them told me around 1600 then another around 1260something.
i use fatsecret because you can access the website on your comp AND it has a free app for phones so it makes it easier to enter in food at home, at work and on the go. with dinner i just try to measure things out in my head... let me know if you have any questions
The thing that really confuses me with figuring things out with dinner is how do I know what a portion size is? Like tonight I had white chili that I made from scratch. How do I figure out what a normal serving size is?
I use this trick when I enter a from-scratch recipe into Daily Plate to come up with serving size: I enter the recipe with all ingredients at 100% of what I'm using. So, like for white chili: 16 oz chicken, 1 can of beans, etc. Then I make the whole meal (chili or soup or whatever) and I immediately plate it into tupperware with equal portions of "eh, that looks like enough food." When I enter the calories for my meal, I just put it as 1/4th of a recipe or 1/3rd of a recipe or however many tupperware containers I ended up with. Casseroles are easier because I can approximate serving size beforehand by thinking, ok I will have 1/6th of the pan, etc.
If you're cooking for a crowd that probably won't work, but if it's just for one or two I've found it to be pretty decent.
The thing that really confuses me with figuring things out with dinner is how do I know what a portion size is? Like tonight I had white chili that I made from scratch. How do I figure out what a normal serving size is?
Lol I personally try to avoid things that are hard to count. Sometime I cant help it so I know exactly what you mean.
We just add all of the ingredients one by one, and divide until it comes under 4-500, unless it is less than that on it's own. That becomes the new portion size, and voila! This is important because, for instance, some of my soups will let you have 2 bowls, but some of the stews you can only have a couple of ladles full.
The Daily Plate is awesome, I must agree. I now have basic calorie counts for my meals that I cook most often, so I only have to open the document on my PC, scroll down, and copy/paste! A bonus is I now have recipes to give to family and friends, and to publish on the web.
I've been counting calories since my teens, and I'm actually trying to stop. It's a great tool for figuring out how much of things you should be eating (my heart almost stopped when I read the numbers on some things, like Oreo Cream Pie!) but I've gotten so good at it I do it automatically. I just can't shut my brain off from screaming "600! 600!" when I'm trying to enjoy a dinner out at Arbys.
Figuring out how much there is in your dinner is actually pretty easy, but it requires some planning--if you've already eaten the chili, it's hard to tell what proportion of the recipe your serving was. I'd actually do the calculations ahead of time, adding up the ground turkey, beans, veggies, whatever you've got going on and then decide how many calories you want to allocate for dinner. 400 is a good number for me, so if the whole batch of chili was 1000 (purely hypothetical) I'd dish out a third and having a small roll on the side.
I'd say try out 1800 calories for a while and see if that works for you. If not, drop in increments of 100 or so calories until you find the spot where you're not ravenous all day, but you're steadily losing weight.
I definitely recommend tracking it online somewhere (I actually use the lose it app on my phone) to make sure you're getting a good balance of carbs/fat/protein too (it's not always only about calories, but the type of calories too) and tweak it until you find what works for you.
who counts calories?
