Hello all,

I have decided this morning to try calorie counting after not having much success with southbeach diet.

My question is....in terms of calorie counting do you just focus on how much calories are in each meal or do you try to focus on the types of foods e.g. leave carbs out of breakfast and have a bread at lunch or vice versa. Or do you try to just keep it balanced? Also what is the easiest way to plan meals?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I don't pay much attention to WHEN I eat, as long as I'm eating pretty much throughout the day and not keeping myself hungry all day and eating all my calories at night. I haven't noticed any difference between eating late at night, early in the day, etc and my weight (though I have noticed that I feel better when I eat in different ways...breakfast at least an hour before morning workout, no refined carbs by themselves, no sugar and alcohol in combination...but that's less about timing and more about what I'm eating).

I did make an effort early on in my journey to eat more at lunch, and found an easy solution to ensure my lunch and dinner calories are pretty balanced...I cook 4 portions of dinner so that we'll have lunch leftovers, and eat those for lunch the next day. That way, if my dinner last night was on plan, my lunch will be too, and I know that I'm getting about the same calories at lunch as at dinner. I'd say the main advantage of that, though, is that lunch is always planned and taken care of, saving me a lot of headaches and planning time.

The nice thing about calorie counting is that you can adapt it to yourself. You may do better with your calories spread out, or with other little "tweaks"...you'll discover those along the way!

I have had success with eating something every 3 - 4 hours. So, I shoot for 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. I make sure I have some protein at each meal as that keeps me from getting hungry in between meals. It really is an indivdual thing but it helps me to make my meal plan in advance and to write down everything I will be eating and the calories in each item. Being new to calorie counting this is important.