[Vintage Bunny]

hi, everyone!

i've been trying to lose weight for a long time, but half-heartedly... now i'm ready to really give this my all without starving myself or purging food (which i have indeed done, and it's sad to say that that's the only way i've ever been successful in losing weight). i want to be healthy, but i could never figure out how i'm supposed to count calories to begin with...

for instance, my mother and i typically cook our own food from scratch. which is a good habit, but how do u count those calories? it seems that the only way to efficiently decipher how many calories u've eaten is to only eat pre-packaged foods. how do u all figure out how many calories something is when there's no marking for the food?

this is something that's bugged me for a while, hopefully u guys can share ur tips with me.

[3FCuser001]

I make nearly all my food for DH and me from scratch as well. And I just measure everything (well, not really everything, I don't measure spices and vinegar ) before adding it to the pot or pan and write it down on a little block of paper I keep in the kitchen. And then, either while the food is cooking or sometimes later, I go to the page where I record my calories (I'm using a German one because it has all the food I buy here; I think fitday.com is a US one) and put everything I put in my food in (well, only half of it, because the other half gets eaten by DH *lol*).

It just tells me the calories for all food there is, no matter if pre-packaged or not.

Did that make it any clearer for you?

[astrophe]

I use Fitday PC.

Just make a new food, list all the recipe ingredients and quantities, how many servings that is, and tada! Next time all I have to do is put in something like "My fav tomato soup" and there's the nutritional profile.

There are a lot of online food logging tools out there to make the math easier.

A.

[me4life]

there are a few sites that have recipe makers...you input the ingredients and they do all the math. myplate is one that i use

[Twiddlebug]

I use the recipe calculator on sparkrecipes.com, but as you can see there are other options.

[ncuneo]

Absolutly false. I pretty much make everything I eat and am an avid/strict calorie counter. By yourself a good food scale and find a good calorie book or website that gives you calories by ounces or grams. Then find yourself a good website to track your cals that allows you to make a database of recipies (I like LoseIt, but sparkpeople, Fitday, Dailyplate are all great). Withing a month or so you'll have a database of recipies and it will make counting a breeze. Good luck!

[sweetnlow28]

I really suggest getting a kitchen scale. You can find digital scales fairly cheap. I found mine for less than 10 dollars and I use it several times every day. Just weigh each item, record it's weight in grams, then look up its calories online. I use fitday.com. There is an option to go by grams for each food in their database. For complete recipes, you can use the calculator here:
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp
It takes a bit to get used to it but once you build a database of your recipes it is simple. If you need more assistance getting started with fitday, I am happy to help

[tomorrowsme]

Definitely echoing the kitchen scale recommendation. I think I paid $20 for mine, and it's digital and can switch between grams/ounces/pounds. Maybe it's the geek in me, but I actually think it's fun. Use an online database or get a book of calorie information, and you're golden.

[elisaannh]

As the others have recommended, count up the ingredients in the recipe and divide by servings. You only have to do it once and have a good idea of the calories, even if the ingredients are not always precise.

I use a measuring tools including a scale and create recipes and meals in my nutritional data base so that I always have the count.