I'm not too much of a planner, but we eat the same rotation of things for the most part, so I've come to know what's what.
I also keep a spreadsheet on my computer and track that way, since I work at home I am on my desktop all day anyway.
I am aiming for around 1400 a day, but I am attacking it more from a weekly standpoint than a daily.
So I have 10,000 calories a week to play with. (I don't add or take away for exercise)
I weigh in on Tuesdays... then it's a free for all. LOL Whatever I have been craving I eat on Tuesday. One week we did Chinese food, one week ice cream sundaes, last night it was pizza. So I ate 2600 calories yesterday ....
but come Monday I will most likely only eat about 700 to 800 for the day.
I find attacking it from a weekly standpoint instead of having to hit that number perfectly every day is working really well for me. And having the low days I feel is helping me in the long run, where if I feel like I need to cut calories down to 1200 or so a day instead I am already used to eating that and less on some days, so it won't be a big deal.
I have one very high day, 4 days of trying to hit the number, 1 day of being on the lower side, and 1 day of very low. I am averaging 2 pounds a week so far and I am thrilled with the way it's going.
I also am not feeling hungry, nor deprived since I always know Tuesday is on its way if there is something I really just feel I have to have. This way I also make sure it's something I REALLY want, and not giving into cravings on a whim.
I promised myself the only way I was going to do this this time was with foods I love and want to eat and to do it MY way, other than any kind of formal plan. I suppose if it needed to be labeled you could say I am doing a bit of calorie cycling and a bit of intermittent fasting. (I have gotten used to skipping breakfast most days, or will just have fruit) But again, really it's just what is keeping me happy and losing weight at the same time.
When I started in January, I pre-planned for a week at a time. That way I KNEW what I was going to eat and exactly how many calories it was.
Since I feel like I've gotten the hang of it, I now just pretty much make sure I have the same things in the house from week to week and eat whatever sounds good at that time.
It's worked pretty well for me! I'm down 52 lbs since January!
-Breakfast is some kind of sandwich/wrap/etc and changes all the time = 175-250 calories,
-Snack is fruit = 70 cals or less,
-Lunch is soup that I've already cooked and frozen into 1-cup portions = 100-175 calories,
-Snack is veggies w/hummus = 200 calories,
-Dinner is anything that I want to eat, often meals I've already cooked and frozen into portions with calorie counts = 300-400 calories
-Snack is usually popcorn or something crunchy = 130 calories
I have room to groove. Sometimes I don't want my snacks, want something different to eat, or sometimes I have last minute dinner plans, but I just keep it similar everyday and don't stress it too much. I've been doing this for years and it works well for me. I just make sure that the meals I eat have a lot of veggies in them and I'm all set.
I aim for a certain amount for each meal and snack. Snack-wise I don't buy anything which would break my target, but of course it's always possible I might eat two of something. The only thing I choose in advance is whether I am having a big lunch and small dinner or small lunch with big dinner. Everything else I decide as and when I am likely to start cooking. I track on Fitday for PC as all the online ones were way too slow for me, they all refreshed every time you typed anything in and that drove me bonkers. I do have a certain number of "free" foods WW style. I have a low calorie count to allow for that, so I won't record things like sugar-free mints, a cup of coffee (milk but no sugar), certain fruit and veg, it's not worth it. I'd rather assume it will not total more than 100 cals and deduct that from every day's allowances.
Sometimes I make something to be "picked at" over the course of the day, like maybe a big bowl of popcorn that I input as if I've eaten all of it and then just eat it as and when I feel like it. I tend to find that too much advance planning leads to eating it because it's already been entered, so if I put into Fitday that I'm having some cottage cheese then I'll eat it all even if I'm already satisfied. Yes, I binge on cottage cheese, how twisted am I? I love it.
Since you don't have a smart phone write everything down and enter everything on the computer when you get home. Before I discovered this website I did a lot of guessing and come to find out I was eating way too many calories! Now I vary around 1,300-1,450 calories a day. I'm allowed 1,510.
When I first started out, I was a daily-accountable-must-track-every-bite kind of person. I had to retrain my body to eat right and the diligence worked! As the months wore on, I realized what I could swap out sanely and eyeball without much grief.
Right now, I am at the eyeball/portion control phase. I don't obsess over the calories in a friend's stew, I just make sure to take a 1/2c serving and have salad or fruit before hand to keep things in check. I managed a birthday splurge weekend without any attention paid to anything calorie-wise and haven't gained at all, so it must be working just fine.
In the beginning I planned my whole day every morning. This really helped keep me on track when I was 1) still really susceptible to cravings and was building willpower and 2) didn't yet have a sense of how many calories were in things.
Now, it's been over a year. I have the same breakfast every day, similar snacks every day, and I split the rest of the calories between lunch and dinner. I roughly add up my lunch calories in my head as I'm packing it, and when I get home I enter everything before I have dinner so that I make sure I don't go over.
(I now allow myself to swap out snacks for an equivalent portion of dessert at work if there's a birthday or something, but I'm pretty picky. I won't waste cals on a junky cookie from the deli, but if it's a gourmet truffle, heck yeah.)
When I started counting, I pre-planned everything in a notebook usually the day before so I could add up calories and tweak my meals if need be. After a month I had enough of an idea of calorie counts to just mostly wing it. About once a week ill log my daily intake just to be sure I'm on track in my estimations.
I have noticed that so many people tend to eat less calories during the day so they can "save room" for dinner (so to speak). I have actually found that this method makes me feel like I am starving by dinner time, not to mention even if I don't overeat I am still going to bed with a very full tummy. That can make for a nasty night of sleep, which in turn makes me crave poor foods like candy and chips the next day just to feel like I can keep my energy up.
I have found that if I start the day with a small breakfast and eat my lunch as the largest meal of the day, I am usually still quite satisfied by dinner. This way it isn't hard to just have a snack and go to bed. All total I usually consume about 1200 calories this way.
Most times I try to eat my carbs in the morning (i.e. cereal), a meat, veggie and fruit for lunch, and a bit of cheese or a nutrition shake for dinner.
I had previously gotten to 190 pounds and lost to 150 in the span of 6 months doing things this way, so it is what I a returning to. Working so far!
For me it's pretty easy, I usually have the same breakfast everyday, lunches rotate between the staples, weekend lunches are usually fairly predictable, and I map out all my menus for the following week to help with shopping lists etc. planning.
I log my calories for the day straight before bed, it's part of my daily routine, write in my diary and input into myfitnesspal diary too - I usually just use my iPhone to input the data, sitting at the computer for that sort of thing irks me.
I don't stress too much about going over on workday calories - because my weekends usually end up being under by hundreds, due to the extra amount of exercise I do and less intake (just the way it happens for me).
I figure out what I'm having for dinner first, and then I add up the other calories I eat until I hit my mark. Usually, I'm allotting 600-800 for dinner, and then eating 400-600 the rest of the day.
I'm like many others and worked out the calories on a few delicious quick meals and stick to these. It's easier said than done though. Tasty low cal meals are not often filling or fast to make.
It's important that these are delicious though or I won't stick to it. It's easy now. Visiting parents, eating out with friends and holidays usually involve a little weight gain though. It balances out in the end though.
I pack breakfast and lunch/snacks to work and put those in on my (loseit!) app on my Iphone. I know I can eat whatever is in my bag from morning until mid afternoon when work is done and that it is accounted for. Since I am a teacher it is pretty hard to eat out because of limited time so most of the time I pack lunch. On the weekends I try to stick to a similar plan.
Like someone above mentioned-I have also found that eating a light dinner is best for my weight loss. I try to save no more than 500 calories for a light dinner/evening snack and I try as a rule not to eat after 7pm.
Here's what has worked for me in the past and what I'm doing now~
Breakfast is easy to figure as I always eat one of 2 different meals.
Lunch is a low cal protein shake along with a very light meal or snack. The protein shake seems to do more to get me through till dinner than anything I've tried.
Dinner is where the majority of my calories are used and I generally eat what I fix for my family just keeping within my calorie allotment which usually means smaller portions. I also keep a few frozen meals in the freezer for emergency use when I don't have time to cook.
Probably the most important thing I do is to make sure I have food in the house that's both tasty and low calorie. When I make my shopping list I make sure to include several low cal foods and snacks because I know if I get hungry and there isn't any healthy food in the pantry I'll eat whatever I can find.
I use a notebook to jot down my calories at each meal and I take the notebook with me when I leave the house. I also just started using WeightCommander.com which is a pretty cool tool.
Last edited by EatMoreCelery; 05-04-2012 at 01:07 PM.
Well, I'm fairly 'new' to calorie counting but I do what I lovingly call 4 Square as in four square meals a day at 400 cals. I can have whatever I want as long as they add up to 400. The fourth 'meal' is actually my snacks. I can have snacks throughout the day or a dessert in the evening as long as in the end, it still equals 400. But most days, I end up doing two snacks at 200 each. I'm sort of a night owl, so eating the same at dinner as I do at the other meals works best for me or I would end up starving and overeat. Every person is different in that aspect. Also, you could change your totals... I aim for 1600 a day since my weight is still up there, but you could always cut some easily. Like, you could do 300 cal meals instead of 400 to do 1300 per day. All I know is that I use to track like crazy when I was doing lowered carb and well... I like that I can have whatever I want and as long as I stay at that cal. count for THAT meal or snack, I'm on plan for the day!
