Does anyone have any advice for calorie counting while eating a dining hall every day? My school provides the nutrition advice online, but I find I have trouble with portion control. I don't want to guesstimate my portion size and be wrong and I haven't really been losing any weight over the past few months so I must be wrong. Any ideas?

Use a salad plate. Works for me!

I don't have any real advice as far as it being a dining hall (is it buffet style, do you have a salad bar, etc.?).

I'd try to use a smaller plate if they have one and then make at least 2/3rds of the plate veggies and salad with a little room for protein. I was always taught that meat/chicken/fish should be about the size of a deck of cards for a portion size so that will give you about 4oz. Also, if they have apples or pears you can take for snacks later do it! I don't want you to deprive yourself but at least if you decide to have a slice of pizza in your dorm, it can be the slice of pizza and an apple instead of 2 slices of pizza!

I wish you lots of luck and commend you for taking these steps to learn while you are young. I never believed everyone when they said my weight would catch up with me as I got older. They were right!!!

There are info graphics on the web if you google portion size, good luck!

They do make very small portable food scales... Pocket sized ones that you can take with you and use at least until you can get a better idea of how many calories are in the things that you most often eat... They're pretty inexpensive... Just google something like... "Pocket sizes food scale"... Might be helpful in the short term to help you get the calories figured out based on the nutritional info that you have available to you...

I agree with TripSwitch, a food scale is the only way of truly knowing how much you are eating. Hey, Al Roker carries a food scale with him every time he goes out to a restaurant so it can't be that bad.