Hi,
I've been on the site and on WW for a little over a year now. I have lost close to 50 pounds, but have been seeing a stall for a long while and I'm not in love with the new WW program so I made the switch to Calorie Counting today. I'm planning on staying within 1300 - 1500 calories per day (probably closer to 1500 on the weekend, and 1300 during the week).
Right now I'm tracking in a spreadsheet. But I've heard spark people is good as well. What is your preferred method of tracking?
Last edited by Shytowngal; 01-05-2011 at 02:13 PM.
I use and love sparkpeople. It seems like alot of work at first but it seems to get easier and you just get in the routine I think atleast for me lol. I really love calorie counting. Your calories sound good. Goodluck!
I use fitday, and really love it. To be fair though, I haven't tried any other ones. Welcome to calorie counting! How many calories do you think you were eating on WW? Your range sounds good to me too, it's where I am too - although I am almost always at 1500 or so. But I am also nursing too, so that's why I keep it at the higher end.
I have fitday, which I like, and an iPhone app called Lose It!. I tend to use the iPhone when I am busy. In Fitday, you can input recipe ingredients and divide by the number of servings to get a calorie count. (You can also do this online somewhere too, I think). 1800 seems to work for me, but I exercise too.
Thanks everyone. Sept15lija: I think I was eating around 1350 or less per day when I was losing on Weight Watchers. It's hard to tell on the point system. I'm know I'm going to need to do some trial and error with calories to find my "sweet spot"
I just signed up for sparkpeople and entered in my meals for the day. It's a great program! It's not really a hassle since I'm used to WW tracking everyday anyway. One thing I wish they had on there is a function to tell you how many calories I have left for the day (course I could just get a calculator and figure it out)!
I have a cheap app on my iphone called "nutrition," (catchy, yes?) from shroomies, I think. It does everything I need it to do, including allow me to add custom foods if I ever run across one that isn't in the database or want to input an often-made recipe.
There are tons of calorie counter apps, of course. I chose this one because it *doesn't* require access to an online database in order to track foods, and it doesn't store your info on line, either. This means I don't have the excuse of "oh, I can't get on line, so I can't track." For someone who spends a lot of time traveling and a surprising amount of time in parts of the US without AT&T coverage, it's great. Second-best 2.99 (or whatever -- certainly it was less than $5) I ever spent on diet/fitness.
I find that calorie counting does work. I don't know about any special programmes. When I'm being good, I use Allan Borushek's Calorie King Calorie Counter. About $15.00 (AU) for the latest edition. His book spells it out pretty well. It gives you a really good idea of what you can eat for the Cals and it's easy to follow. At the end of the day, if you know what's gone into the cake hole, you will know how guilty or angelic to feel. His support books are good too. Best of all, there are no gimmick foods that you must have to do the programme, just normal grocery items - you choose whether to put potato chips and cake in the trolley, but at least you know how much damage those goodies will do.
I have tried fitday, spark people, lose it, and the daily plate. I like The Daily Plate the best. I like it because it has everything I ever have wanted to look up and I never have to guess or enter the info myself. Once in a while I find something that someone has entered wrong, but I can always find what I want.
Crosstrainer 6 software. I can't stand having to be online to track calories, since my connection is dial-up. Don't have a smartphone. Besides, I can track a lot of other stuff, like water, exercise and weightlifting with the software.
It's nice, because you can save meals that you eat often and copy/paste meals which is a real time saver, since you can also then edit a copy/pasted meal to account for small changes.
Thanks everyone. Sept15lija: I think I was eating around 1350 or less per day when I was losing on Weight Watchers. It's hard to tell on the point system. I'm know I'm going to need to do some trial and error with calories to find my "sweet spot"
I just signed up for sparkpeople and entered in my meals for the day. It's a great program! It's not really a hassle since I'm used to WW tracking everyday anyway. One thing I wish they had on there is a function to tell you how many calories I have left for the day (course I could just get a calculator and figure it out)!
At the bottom of the tracking sheet, it should say "Calories remaining", "fat grams remaining", etc.
Giving Calorie Counting a Shot
Welcome to calorie counting lol
