I ran into this last night when I made homemade pizza. I simply did not feel like calculating everything, so I used the Fitday numbers for veggie pizza and paid close attention to how much I ate. I'm pretty sure Fitday's numbers were high for what I made and ate, but so be it.
All things in weight loss are a mind game for me. I have to force myself to let some things go on occasion (not every day) otherwise I burn out, get mad, give up.
Calorie counting isn't rocket science, the calculations don't have to be nearly as precise.
Of course some precision is necessary, but even if you're math is off my 500 calories, it isn't necessarily a tragedy. Of course it could be if you had no access to mirrors, clothing, tape measures or scales.
You only have to be as precise enough to yield successful results.
I've found that a lot of people use lack of precision as a reason to give up. They feel they can't or aren't willing to do the four column math for every mouthful, so they give up in frustration.
Exchange plan calorie counting is very imprecise. If I used the lowest calorie options, for each and every exchange, my 1800 calorie exchange plan would probably fall closer to 1600 calories. If I used the highest calorie option for each and every exchange, my calories would probably fall closer to 2000 calories. On one hand that's a 400 calorie difference. Over time that could mean almost a pound difference every week, but so what? I can use my bathroom scale to tell me if I'm satisfied with my rate of loss and I can adjust my exchange plan as needed.
When I'm not losing, it's usually not because I'm not counting precisely enough - it's because I'm not counting at all.
I'm not saying that anyone has to be any more or less precise than they want to be, but you've got to keep it in perspective. You've got to understand best and worse case scenario.
If you eat one candybar, you can't gain 5 lbs from it (unless it's at least a 7 lb candybar).
And as for serving sizes, your odds of cutting equal servings may be close to nil - but it doesn't have to be. Even eyeballing it, you're probably going to come pretty close. And if you're the only person eating the recipe, it matters even less because you're going to be overestimating one serving, and underestimating the next. When the dish is gone, the errors will have averaged out.
If you use a modern digital kitchen scale, you CAN calculate serving sizes and calorie counts extremely precisely. More precisely than you really need.
Don't get me wrong, calorie counting does require some precision, but only enough precision to be effective. The scale will tell you if you're not being precise enough. And even then (say you really suck at estimation and you tend to underestimate calories by 20%) - what does that mean? Well, when you think you're eating 1500 calories, you're really eating 1800. That can affect your weight loss - but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to get better at estimation. If you want to lose more, and decide to change your calorie count to 1200 calories. Changing your "calorie count" without improving your calorie counting precision will mean you're actually eating 1440 calories. You're math is still just as "wrong" but the effect is still what you want it to be. You lose weight because you're eating less than you were before.
We have to remember that the intended and required result isn't perfect math, it's weight loss or maintenance. If you're seeing the results you want, your math is good enough.
The thing about those is that you split it into servings, except the odds of you cutting equal servings is close to nil.
Also, I use nutrition labels straight off of what I'm eating. I don't use the database on Fitday for anything except for whole fruits and vegetables, and then I cross check them with other sources on the internet before editing them and saving them to my Custom Foods list and using them from there from then on.
If I make chicken salad, for example, I measure how much it is before I split it into servings (and measure when I take a serving). Sure, there will be variances in how much of each ingredient is in each serving, but I really don't believe there's a huge enough variance to make that big a difference. Often I use the calculator for ONE thing, like yesterday when I made one strawberry poppyseed salad, but it is possible to get reasonably close when I'm making a recipe.
Okay I totally get what you guys are saying. I do make a lot of the same recipes over and over again. So I guess I should invest in a scale for one thing. Also, there is this huge batch of chili I LOVE to make. So do I take like a 1 cup and then have to scoop out 1 cup over and over again and then that's how many servings I get out of it?
I am trying to get better at this calorie counting thing. I am loving eating homemade types of food (versus lean cuisines) so if I only have to do it once for each recipe that would be an easier way to look at it.
what i do with chili is make as many servings as I want out of it... I make a big crock pot of chili
then I take the bowl I'd like to eat it out of and I fill it till it's full. I count how many ladle fulls it took to fill the bowl I want to eat out of then lets say it took 3 ladle fulls to fill the bowl I want to eat out to the top that is my serving so I take Tupperware containers and fill them each up with 3 ladle fulls usually I fill about 5 containers full so I take the entire calorie count for the chili and divide how many bowl fulls I got out of it. A serving size is how many servings you actually get out of it. so for me it's easier to just divide it all up into equal servings but according to what will fill me up
It is VERY frustrating, and I end up doing the same thing the other ladies suggested: adding up all the ingredients and dividing it into servings.
It's really annoying when you go to a small restaurant that does not have nutritional information readily available. What I do in that case is just guess about what was in there and how much. If it's a little off, it's a little off! One day of being off a couple hundred calories one way or the other does not destroy a diet. It's really hard for me, because I let myself be a bit OCD with the counting and exercise to keep me motivated, but I have forced myself to give it my best guess and just let it go.
Calorie counting isn't rocket science, the calculations don't have to be nearly as precise.
Of course some precision is necessary, but even if you're math is off my 500 calories, it isn't necessarily a tragedy. Of course it could be if you had no access to mirrors, clothing, tape measures or scales.
You only have to be as precise enough to yield successful results.
I rarely use processed foods (hey, they're not available where I live) ... I even make my own yogurt. And none of the dishes I regularly eat are in any of the calorie counters. Cassava? African yams? Hahahaha.
Kaplods really has a point here. I count every calorie that goes into my body, the best I can. If I can't find exactly what I ate, I find something that's close. If I think the count is a bit low, I add a tablespoon of oil or something so that the total calories are what I think they should be.
It's a lot of work. Entering everything that goes into every recipe is really really annoying. But now that I've been doing it for a while, most of my go-to recipes are already in the system, and I don't have to enter them again. 5 different kinds of pasta salads? Check! African super-salad? Check! All kinds of flat bread pizza? Check! Sandwiches and pasta sauces? Check! Now that I've put in the initial grunt work, calorie counting is a lot easier.
tldr; It gets easier with time. Good luck, and stick with it!
I agree that it's not rocket science. For me the whole process has more to do with being aware of what (and how much) is going into my mouth than anything. Counting calories isn't necessarily a fine science, but a means to finding balance and learning the right way to eat.
When I make recipes, I usually eat all the servings over a few days. So if one serving is a tiny bit bigger than the other, I don't really care. That means the next one is a tiny bit smaller. It all works out in the end.
