Tips on Counting Calories (for a food journal)
 

Hello everyone...

I went to see a nutritional counselor Wednesday and as part of the program he has asked me to keep a food journal. I have been doing that, keeping track of food and water in-take. What I have also been doing is keep track of the calories. For example, if I eat a granola bar I’ll write down what the package says it contains and what not. However, the other day I had a salad with a scoop of tuna on it from Farmer Boys and I figured they would have a nutritional guide on their website, but I have not been able to find anything…

So I am wondering, for those who keep track of calories, how do you do it? Hehehehe is there a site on the net where they have listings like this? I know some places have them on their website, but for those that don’t, what is a good way to estimate? Maybe some ideas or tips?

I never thought I would resort to counting calories. I always told myself there’s no way I would do that, but here I am…. Trying to learn how to do that. I figured the first step would be that I have to at least see how much I’m taking in on a normal day and from there I can cut back on things and then compare that in-take to what I had previously.

Thanks everyone…

Sue…
:moo:

Hi Sue.....Here is a site.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

It's the USDA....where they have a lot of food in it.

Bobbie...aka...April

Hey Sue,

I've discovered over the course of years and years of "dieting" that aside from spending $$ (WW), the ONLY way I can lose weight is to keep track of my caloric intake.

I don't know if this is what you meant when you asked how we did it, but I keep a checkbook-type food journal. I start with the number of calories I want to eat during the day then, as I eat, I write the food down and subtract the # of calories from the starting amount, then just keep a running total. It's the easiest way I've found to do it, because if I wait till the end of the day to add them all up, I'll let myself get way out of hand!

As far as estimating calories, ich. I hardly ever attempt it. I tend to stick to "safe" foods that have the good-old nutritional panel. Keeps me from eating out as much, too--unless I'm having an Off Program day. You ustacould get a pretty good calorie counter-type book at the check outs at Wal-Mart for cheap. I don't know about websites, cept maybe this one dwlz.com has some pretty good stuff, but it's mostly in accordance w/Weight Watchers point system.

Good luck to you!!!

Cheryl

fitday.com is a great place to journal your food and keep up with calories and anything else you want to.

I always count my calories. I try other things but it always comes back to that, and is really sort of 2nd nature for me. Besides fitday.com I also carry around a little pocket calorie counter book that you can get at any of the book stores.

hugs,
cathy

When it comes to dieting, the best way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. No matter what other "diets" may come and go, that will ALWAYS be true.

And, you'd be surprised at how many calories you can eat and still lose weight. Most health experts (dr's, certified trainers, nutritionists & such) I have ever talked to about healthy weight loss have said that under no circumstance should you ever eat less than 1,200 calories/day. I am currently eating between 1,600-1,800/day and have lost 4 pounds in two weeks. (I started @ 244 lbs. eating 2,000 cal/day, but wasn't losing at that). If you drop below 1,200/day, your body will kick into "starvation mode" and FIGHT to hold on to every fat cell it can.

cd

Oh, and here's a neat thing (this is true in MOST cases, I'm sure there are some that are special--and this is by no means gospel!!)--

Usually, to figure out how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight, you can just add a 0 to the end of your weight. Like, for instance, I weighed 244 when I started, to maintain that weight I could eat 2440 cal/day and not exercise.

April--The 1490 deal sounds right on to me. Actually, if you multiply 199 by 10, you get 1990, so I guess that someone else actually agrees with me :)

That happens so rarely these days!.......

April99 – Hey that’s a great website! Thanks! I’ll be book marking that for sure! The counselor didn’t give me a set limit on calories yet. I just filled out forms and gave a basic idea of what I ate the last few days. He wants me to keep a food journal so that he can see where my caloric intake is right now and then he said we will work out something. He mentioned about not cutting things out drastically so that I don’t send my body into starvation mode. So I guess he wants to see where I am at now and place me at a decent rate later. I think we gonna talk about that this coming Wednesday. About spending money on diets and what not, I’ve tried metabolife, and those surgeries are really scary, among other things. I figured I gotta do something, so lets see how this counting calories work. I’m just scared of feeling like I’m starving myself.

4myself – Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I agree with you on watching caloric intake. I never thought I would be one to count calories… hehehe… I didn’t quite know how to phrase what I was asking to be honest. I guess what I meant is, for those foods that don’t seem to have any information on it (like that farmer boys tuna scoop salad), how exactly do you figure out how many calories are in it. Another example is today was “Hula Day” at my work and so several of the teachers cooked food and served lunch in the staff room and so I had lunch with the rest of the staff, but I don’t know how to figure out how to count the calories in that. Does that make better sense? I guess I should have given a “for example” statement heheh cause I re-read what I posted and I didn’t understand it myself *blush* But I see that you stick to something that already has nutritional info on it. I’ll have to start getting familiar with this stuff, then I am sure it will come easier. I never thought of working it backwards, once the nutritional counselor gives me an idea of what I should be cutting calories down to, I’ll use that method :-)

That little trick with adding the 0 to the end of your weight, I weight well 370 now, so that means so I could eat 3700 calories? Hehehe… I think that was what I was eating before. Take a look at my comment towards the end of this post about the combo meals.

Cathyxxx – Hmmm, pocket calorie counter book… I’ll have to check into that. I'll look into that website as well for the food journal. Thanks!

Honestly ladies. I could probably eat 1.5 to almost 2 full meals of those Value Meals that you get at McDonalds or whatever other place you can get combo meals. How embarrassing to mention that, but it’s true. I know that even if I cut my calories down to 2000 a day, I would loose something. Of course I would have to adjust it once I get to a certain point, but you know… slow, small, baby steps. I gotta go slow or I’ll fail, I know that for sure.

A lot of great info! Thanks everyone! I’ll keep you all posted on what happens with the Nutritional Counselor this Wednesday… more than likely I will post I in the Daily Chat Thread in case you are wondering where I went to hehehe Thanks everyone!

Sue
:moo:

I know a few other sites.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/Index.html

http://www.beefinfo.org/nutrient.cfm.


April...aka...Bobbie

what i do if i go out to eat even to like a fast food place. I go to there website before i go and look up what i can eat like www.tacobell.com they have a guide on what to eat and all that...

Scorchin, yeah that's what I do, but some of the sites don't have them. Like for example Popeyes does not have one, but they are supposedly working on one. However, I figured Popeyes chicken, KFC chicken, it's pretty similar so I used the nutritional info on their web site.

Sue...