Tracking Your Calories?
 

I keep reading about how many who count calories use some form of online calorie counter like fitday, sparkpeople, dailyplate etc.

My question is how do you actually track them?
Do you get online in the morning and enter the day?
Do you enter your meals as you go?
Or do you do it all at night?

I do it the old fashion way, I have a calorie book and a paper journal and when I eat something, I try to look it up right away and write it down. I take my journal everywhere with me.

Just curious how others keep track of their calorie counting.

I plan all my food the night before. If I have to deviate from my plan at all, I go into FitDay and record it before I eat it.

I just enter it online as I eat. I don't do that well with structured preplanned meals. I work from home so I can just hop online and record it right away. (I've used Myfooddiary.com for that but now I use the food logs for my BodyBugg)

I use sparkpeople.

I track breakfast and lunch in the mornings while I have my coffee and breakfast.

When I get home I figure out what I want for dinner, track it and add to it or subtract from it depending on where my cals are.

I have a basic formula for dinner of veggies + meat over grain, and I know the general calories of pasta, rice, couscous, etc. so planning dinner is easy.

I plan usually the night before (when I'm figuring out what dinner I'm going to make). I've been at it long enough that I can usually change things on the fly if the day changes. Although usually once it's set I don't often bother. The one thing I will do is estimate the fruit and adjust it later on.

I planned out ahead of time, then entered calories as I went. When necessary, I kept track in my head until the evening when I entered my calories for the day in Fitday.

Most of my meals are planned ahead of time too but I will track them on the DP iphone app as I eat.

I have a small calorie king book i keep in my car.I just use paper and pencil.I work 12 -14 hours days and dont always know if I will be able to get a meal in or where so I use my calorie book a lot since I dont always have internet access.

I use daily plate, i track typically twice a day, after lunch and at night. I do it most days of the month.

I use the pen and notebook method. I usually plan my meals in the evening for the following day. This takes about 5 minutes. I use calorie king for calorie counts and have it with me at all times.

I track on the bodybugg website. I make a point to log everything that happens before dinner actually before dinner, usually after mid afternoon snack, so I know exactly where I stand for evening. I tend to keep my calories pretty regular...300 c bfast, 200 c snack, 400 c lunch, 200 c snack, avg of 500 c for dinner, and then if I need an evening snack it's at 200 c or under...which puts me at 1800 which is my goal right now.

I record as I eat (I'm usually home for meals). If I'm away from home for a meal, I pick the most suitable thing off the menu and record it when I get home; if it's a buffet, I take the leanest thing I can find and plain salad.

I don't plan meals for the day in advance but I only keep stuff in the house that can be made into calorie-approprate meals.

I plan all of my food in advance but know the general calorie counts of the things I eat if I stray from the planned menu while out. I plug everything into DP in the morning, then make any adjustments once I get home from work.

So far I have been using a spreadsheet I set up on google docs, that way I can access it from work. I find the calories counts here on 3FC simple and easy to use. I tried Fitday a long time ago but just got frustrated trying to find foods. I plan my food the day before and make any adjustments as I go throughout the day.

Since I'm home during the day and a computer junkie, I track as I go. I never know what I want to eat when, so planning ahead is hard. I do try to ask my tummy/mouth what it wants to eat (from intuitive eating.)

As I prepare my meal, I have my scale ready, prepare the foods and weigh each of them. Write little notes on a pad of paper, and then I can enter each item into the computer. Yes, it's a bit obsessive, but I figure the more obsessive I am on a daily basis, the more relaxed I can be when I can't do it exactly (like when I go out and eat.)

I will occasionally start tracking dinner ahead of time if I know what we're having.

I track mine on LoseIt on the iPhone. I have it with me all day so it's quite easy to put everything in as the day goes by. Also, it's great to have when deciding what or how much to eat during the day since I can see how many calories something has before deciding how much to eat. It comes with a pretty good library of foods and I've added quite a number of my own customized foods and recipes now.

After breakfast (always the same thing) I put in what I will be eating for lunch and dinner. I like SparkPeople, but FitDay and TDP are nice as well. I usually end up planning to eat more than I do, so it's easy to just hit "remove" and take off the food I am too full for. Also it's nice because if I know I am going to be out with my friends, I know what I can have and what I cannot have before I go.

I use Sparkpeople and I track my breakfasts, snacks and lunches the night before on the site. Then that night I add in what I had for dinner and also plan what I will have the next day.

I love the ease of the site because you can browse hundreds of items other people have added

I purchased the FitDay program for about $25 and installed in on one of the new "netbook" minis. I keep the netbook out on my kitchen counter or on the coffee table in the den all the time. Before I make a decision to eat something, I weight and enter the values into FitDay to see the results. It I don't like the outcome, I think LONG AND HARD before I actually consume the food. I try to keep my breakfast cal to 350, my lunch cal to 350, and my dinner cal to 500-600 cal, and evening snack cal to 100-200 for a total cal for the day of between 1400-1600 calories.

I keep a general mental tally in my head until I get home from work. It's not an absolute count, but I know whether I've done well or if I've got a high count (going out for lunch, for example). When I get home from work, I'll log what I've eaten thus far for the day into TheDailyPlate.com. I plan dinner according to how my count looks. Like Rosinante, I only keep stuff in the house that can go into a healthy meal. If my count is fairly low, then I can have a bit of a heavier dinner but if my count is high, then I need to have a lighter dinner.

It's just me here; this wouldn't work if I had a family to cook for. But it's pretty easy for me to decide what I want/can have and then just do that. I don't like to plan ahead; what if I plan to have salmon and then am not in the mood for it by the time dinner gets here?

I add it in my head..I am usually done eating by 7pm or 8 pm..so at 5 pm...I use my daily total to plan out dinner. After eating is over for the day, I write it in my notebook.I have been doing calorie counting since i was 14--15 years now. So it's really easy.

I just use a dry erase board on my fridge - everytime I eat something, I write it on there and just add it up through out the day. I didn't always remember to log it on the computer, or just didn't feel like getting on the computer - so this has been the best and easiest way for me.

I typically plan my meal from the night before and plug it into Fit Day, then if I make any changes I modify it the actual day of. I work on a computer pretty much all day, so it's been relatively easy for me to do.

I have a notebook I log everything into. It's tough to get on the computer everytime I eat and I'm not good at planning things in advance. I do log everything as soon as I eat it so when I'm figuring out dinner I know exactly how many calories I'm working with. It also helps because sometimes I realize I haven't eaten enough calories so I make sure to make time for snacks rather than eat a huge dinner to make them up.

I use a DietMinder journal - keep it with me where I go and update it throughout the day. I bought a new little calorie counter book that includes fast food/restaurants, along with typical grocery items.

I was always wondering about the DietMinder journal, at one point I was going to get one.
I use The Complete Book of Food Counts by Corinne Netzer, everything I could possible eat is listed.
I love reading about how others keep track of their calories, such wonderful ideas, thank you.

I use a saved document on microsoft word and add up the calories using my little calorie counting book. Ive tried daily plate and fitday but the brands are all american so Im not sure if theyre representing the food Im eating in the UK. I add them up at night, or during the day if Im off and at the computer, but get so busy I miss days occationally. They do take time to look up and add up everything, and i have a rubbish memory to remember the calories!

I keep a clipboard in the kitchen and whenever I eat something I write it down. I then log the foods at thedailyplate.com. Although, I don't plan out my menu in advance I pretty much know what I am going to eat for the day.

I am off today and yesterday. I have been home most of the day so tracking has been a cinch. I use sparkpeople because it is a very easy to use site and also it calculates my needs in a day. It reminds me of the tracking with WeightWatchers but better and easier.

As for figuring out the day's meals, what I do is sketch out a day and add it up. Everyday has a different menu so with what I want in a day I try to first figure out dinner. Yes, dinner is my big deal meal and I look forward to it. I add it up first and then back track with the lunch and breakfast meals. I also use Weight Watcher's guidelines so I get the nutrition into the day and that makes sure that at the end of the day I get a good response when I finish the day.

It also does a good analysis of the day's menu. That I think is really helpful.

Now as for portability, I will print the day's menu for myself. It forces me to look at it and not deviate for now. I have my calorie books and I have allowed myself more leeway as long as the day's calorie totals fit in.

What I have decided to back off on is excess condiments and just be wary of calories that can creep in without me calculating them into the day. Ketchup is one condiment that on Core and Simply Filling was getting out of hand and now I see a packet is either 10 or 15 calories per. I didn't measure this before because it was considered a "free food". It isn't because it has calories that can add up.

I am new to this, only been doing it 1.5 weeks so far. I am using an application on my phone called "Lose it!". So far it is working quite well for me. It allows you to enter foods as well as exercise. I enter in as I go during the day for the most part. It is easiest this way because I always have my phone with me, anyways.

For a while it was on a scrap text document, but eventually I was able to keep the math in my head. It helps to eat some of the same things daily, so I know already roughly what my breakfast, lunch and snacks come out to.

I use the iPhone app called Track and Plan which is also available offline (i.e. if you're on a plane or not "in network" for some reason).
Before this, I used the calorie king book and a small notebook. I record my calories right BEFORE I eat/order/begin meal prep as the case may be.