Calorie counting helped me lose weight. How can I hate it? :D I actually don't mind it at all. I can't imagine living life without counting calories now.

Originally Posted by thundahthighs:
I HATE washing out all those measuring implements.
But, I did lose two pounds last week, so the counting has paid off. :carrot:

It stinks, but it works!

Hooray for 2 pounds!!

I highly recommend using a food scale and weigh instead of measure. I very rarely use measuring cups or spoons. Most packages list the serving size in grams or ounces.

For example, breakfast I have cereal with milk. I put the bowl on the scale and turn it on. I pour 1.5 oz of cereal in (serving size of my cereal is 1 oz and I have 1.5 servings). Zero out the scale and pour 4 oz of milk and voila, bowl of cereal with nothing extra to wash.

Good luck!!

I find that it is hard to get started, hopefully the process will get easier. So far today I'm not hungry and i'm about where i am supposed to be. I haven't gotten to the point where I hate it yet. My measuring cups and food scale will get a workout LOL

The food scale/nothing to wash has really got me thinking.

Stupid question/ if it's more than one ingrediantseseses, you just weigh, add, weigh, add...

:dizzy:

Originally Posted by thundahthighs:
The food scale/nothing to wash has really got me thinking.

Stupid question/ if it's more than one ingrediantseseses, you just weigh, add, weigh, add...

:dizzy:

Yep. You mean tare (zero out) the scale in between? Yep, you can do that. In general it's just figuring out the calories for each ingredient and adding it up. Same goes for a recipe. Add together all of the ingredients and divide by servings.

Huzzah!

:D

Originally Posted by juliana77:
Hooray for 2 pounds!!

I highly recommend using a food scale and weigh instead of measure. I very rarely use measuring cups or spoons. Most packages list the serving size in grams or ounces.

For example, breakfast I have cereal with milk. I put the bowl on the scale and turn it on. I pour 1.5 oz of cereal in (serving size of my cereal is 1 oz and I have 1.5 servings). Zero out the scale and pour 4 oz of milk and voila, bowl of cereal with nothing extra to wash.

Good luck!!

that just gave me an idea on how to work around recipes. when I make big one dish type meals like pasta or soups my family members take bigger portions than me, so dividing up portions into containers doesn't really work.

so I wonder if I could just add up how much all the ingredients weigh together and then divide it by the number of portions and then weigh out my own portion :?: I guess I would have to weigh the ingredients uncooked cause it's probably not too safe to put a hot pan on the scale, so not sure how much that would effect things.

It is a pain figuring out how many calories in a recipe/dish prepared from scratch but it's worth the hassle of measuring/weighing, adding, and dividing to see that darned scale smile at ya once in awhile.

Originally Posted by juliana77:
For example, breakfast I have cereal with milk. I put the bowl on the scale and turn it on. I pour 1.5 oz of cereal in (serving size of my cereal is 1 oz and I have 1.5 servings). Zero out the scale and pour 4 oz of milk and voila, bowl of cereal with nothing extra to wash.

Be careful with this..... an ounce of liquid measure is not the same as an ounce of weight! You are measuring the weight of the milk, not the volume, as a measuring cup would. You could end up eating way more than you had intended by using a weight measurement on liquids. A way to prevent this from confusing you is to change your scale to grams, since there is no liquid "gram" like there is for ounces. That way you know you have to look up the value for e.g. 100g of milk.

So there is still a way to use this strategy, just be mindful!

I am still in the "learning to do this and do it everyday" stage and I am with you! Somedays I feel that it is great. When I can easily get the calorie counts for things and when I land in my goal I love it because I know that I was successful in losing weight at least for that day. BUT so many other days I hate it! I hate having a hard time knowing how to count somethings. I hate having to measure every morsel I eat and every morsel I put in a recipe when I am cooking. Sometimes I feel that counting calories makes me want to love on lean cuisine meals so the counting is easier.

But I hope that the longer I do this the easier it gets. I look forward to loving it most of the time and hating the counting rarely. Right now its kinda the opposite....

debigulating- Thanks for that response about the scale. I do the very same thing and it never occurred to me that using oz on liquids had the potential to be a dangerous method!I'll keep this in mind in the future.

It can get annoying at times. I agree with other posters who brought up the fact that in the end, you're going to have to count something!
I do find though that I take a break every few weeks for a day or two. I don't count anything, I just eat. This gives my mind a mental break. That way I don't drive myself nuts or stop all together.
Calorie counting has become a way of life for me, or part of my lifestyle rather. The great thing is with calorie counting databases, it really isn't that hard to do.

tdiprincess- The calorie counting break sounds like a great plan. I think I'll wait until I have been successful at counting everything for a solid month before I take breaks. But that does seem like a great sanity saver.

tdiprincess,

Kudos to you for being able to take breaks but that's something I know I should not do. Experience has told me that if I stop counting for even a day the scales will show it and then I'll get discouraged, feel bad about myself, and quit. :p

I hated it in the beginning because when you're first starting out, you're always looking at everything in detail, but after awhile of doing it, it kind of becomes natural. Now it's like second nature to where I just know what to grab and stay under the limit.