Great thread! I've been struggling with this. Personally I micro manage my calories for a few days then become frustrated at avoiding certain foods I can't calculate down to the exact calorie and go bananas and eat some out of control meal. Its like I'm saying to myself, "Ha! Record THAT!"
I think I need to be an estimator to keep my sanity but I've only been able to maintain with estimating. Seems I need to start counting to continue losing.
:P

If you only maintain by estimating, that may mean you tend to underestimate - but that doesn't mean you have to stop estimating, you just have to either refine your estimation skills or change your calorie target.

Say you were aiming for 1800 calories, but tend to overestimate calorie content by about 15% (meaning you actually eat about 2070 calories when your target is 1800).

If you lower your goal, you'll probably continue to underestimate to the same degree, but you'll lose weight because your target is lower.


If you lower your goal to 1500, you'll take in about 1800 calories. If you lower your goal to 1200, you'll actually be taking in about 1400 calories.

Just keep lowering your calorie goal, until your estimation works for weight loss.


Heck, even if your estimation is so far off that you're eating 2000 calories when you're aiming for 1000, you can lower your goal to 700.


It doesn't matter, so long as you find the "goal" that works with your estimation.

I'm using FitDay, the PC version, and this is what I do for cooking big batches. I write down everything that goes in, measuring as I go (as said above, especially with cooking oil, nuts and other high-calorie foods), and then I divide it into portions when it's done. Once I know the number of portions, it's easy to use software to work out the data for an individual portion, and save that as a custom food. If you tend to cook recipes the same way and serve up the same size portions, you should only need to do this once.

If you're using the online version of FitDay, I think you'll need to use another website to do this (can't remember the name but there are several), but if you're using the PC version, what you have to do is browse the foods already in the database, pick something which has ingredients listed, click on edit, rename it to your food, put the number of servings as 5 or whatever the total was, edit the ingredients listed to turn them into yours (remember to change the quantities too, and copy and paste if there aren't enough), and then change the number of servings to 1 and hit save. Yes, it's a faff, but it's the only way to input ingredients, and it's much quick to do than it is to explain. If you just create a custom food in the usual fashion, the ingredients column doesn't work, you can't add anything. Quite daft, I know, but there are quite a lot of flaws with FitDay and the folks who made it clearly have no interest in fixing them.

I do estimate a lot (& I use FitDay) if I am cooking for myself. Lucky for me, I hate cooking so I rarely do it. (LOL but it's true!)

I usually don't have to estimate when eating out because most places (specifically chain restaurants) have on-line menu & nutritional values.

I agree w/others who say "planning is key" - but sometimes you just find yourself in a place where you HAVE to eat out. In those cases, I go for the most obvious least-caloric foods available. ALWAYS water to drink (or diet soda) and nothing fried. And oftimes I forego food altogether & have something I KNOW is healthier when I get home. The trick there is to NOT over-eat, because when you let yourself get TOO HUNGRY, that's always a danger. But I have also found that even when I'm "ravenous" I am able to keep portions in check by reminding myself that BEING STUFFED is not a happy feeling, and reminding myself to EAT SLOWLY so the stomach has time to tell the brain "OK, I've had enough!" Also, it's well worth noting that being "hungry" for a little while is not going to kill you. Most times I find that I can ride it out.

Another easy way to handle that kind of predicament is to eat something 'pre-packaged' such as crackers from a vending machine. Maybe not the healthiest thing to do, but at least then you CAN count your calories by the proper amount.

And last but not least, I input a "create your own food fake guesstimation" into my FitDay. It's 100 calories. Therefore any given day, meal, etc, I can add "x amount of calories" (by using serving size) to my daily intake. So if I am pretty sure I ate about 400 calories of whatever, I just input my Guesstimation Food at 4 servings.

Keep tweaking it for yourself. It really does get easier with time.

This is brilliant! Why did I never think of this!

I do something similar. I entered a food into my calorie counting called "Just a Bite". Mine is 25 calories. Sometimes just a bite is only 25 calories... sometimes I have several bites and scale up!

Kaplods, I guess I was kind of estimating without and exact goal along with intuitive eating. I started calorie counting last week because I would like to continue weight loss. I guess once I start putting a limit on how much I can have I want more because I'm not suppose to have it. Likewise if I'm not calorie counting I don't think twice about turning down a second helping.
I want what I'm not supposed to have!

I plan ahead if I know I am going to be away from home at an eating time and take something with me. I also keep protein bars in my purse for emergency situations. Yes, they are processed food which I would rather not have, but they are only for situations when the other choices are even worse.

As for things you cook at home, I have never used fitday, but I assume it has a recipe builder. I track my calories on the site that Heather posted a link to and I can build and store recipes and meals. I measure (in grams) every nutritionally relevant ingredient (I don't measure water, non-salted seasonings, etc.) as I am cooking. I measure the total weight of the finished food (in grams again). I divide by 100 and use that as the number of servings for the recipe. Since the serving is always the same weight for every recipe I build I never need to remember what it was for any particular recipe. I measure how many grams of the food I eat and put in the number of servings accordingly. If I eat 285 grams then I put in 2.85 servings, 62 grams = 0.62 serving, etc.

I also cook for my husband, occasionally friends, and will hopefully be cooking for kids soon. That doesn't change how or what I cook. It doesn't matter if they do not need/want to be on a diet. Healthy food will not hurt them and if they need more calories than you then they can just have a larger portion than you. My husband will also sometimes add extra cheese, butter, etc. to his portion of things that I cook.

Boy do I understand wanting what I'm not supposed to have, so for me it was essential to stop looking at it that way (easier said than done, but also easier done than I would have expected).

First and foremost, I never set a hard limit. It seemed ridiculous to me that I could feel good at 1500 calories and like I'd blown it on 1525.

I had to look at my food budget, as I would my monetary budget. I CAN buy anything I want to with my money, but if I spend the rent money on shoes, I'm not going to be very happy in the long run.

I like the exchange plan, because it reminds me to get in foods I might otherwise neglect. I'm not a dairy fan, and while I know that there are ways to get calcium other than dairy, I still have to THINK about it, to get in calcium rich foods. With fruits and veggies I tend to be feast or famine - either eating enough to rile my IBS and end up in the potty all day, or I eat too few (which also aggravated the IBS but more in the constipation direction).

It also helps me be creative. Spending limits with money do that too. If I know that I have $30 to spend on an outfit, I'm extremely creative and more pleased with my purchase than when I have no limit. When I know that I have x number of fruit servings it makes me very aware of making the best of my choice.

I remind myself that I always have the choice to blow the rent money on shoes, or my calories on cheesecake, and doing either won't make me a bad person (just a foolish one).

Both with dieting and with money, I also budget for "discretionary spending." Hubby and I are on a tight budget, but we always set some "mad money" aside for each of us and also for us to use as a couple - money that we get to spend on anything we want - including foolishness without guilt (because we've already taken into account and aren't sacrificing the rent, groceries, insurance premiums, utilities, and other necessary expenses).

I do that with my exchange plan too. I wanted to follow a plan that averaged 1800 calories, but I also knew that no matter what my budget, I always would want more. So instead I took a 1500 calorie lower carb exchange plan and set it as my "minimum" and then gave myself a budget of optional exchanges (I borrowed that from the old Weight Watchers plans, when WW was an exchange plan and had optional calories and/or floating exchanges).

So in addition to my 1500 calorie exchange plan, I give myself 6 "floating" exchanges (meaning I can spend them on fruit, starch, protein or dairy exchanges).

That means my daily average (when I'm following my plan as I intend to) calorie intake falls between 1500 to 2000 calories.

I also don't consider myself "good" or even "better" for having eating 1500 rather than 2000. Those 500 calories (give or take) are my mad money, and while I don't have to spend every cent of it, I also don't have to feel guilty if I do.

I don't even have to feel guilty if I go over, or if I do something dumb and DO spend the rent money on shoes. I just have to learn from the mistake and move on. I'm not a horrible person if I overspend (with money or calories) but if I want to meet my goals, I have to stay in budget more often than not.


For me, the exchange plans help tremendously, because on straight calorie counting I either end up choosing based on trying to be as frugal as possible or based on what I want to eat (and while I like healthy foods, and aren't normally attracted to typical junk foods, what I spontaneously want to eat, isn't necessarily what would be best to eat).

When I allow myself to spend money or calories without having a budget in place, I do tend to spend less wisely - but I actually have more fun when I'm on a budget.

For example, one year I went to Florida with my family when I really couldn't afford it. I tried to spend as little money as possible, but I didn't have a budget (and purposely didn't, and just decided I'd spend as little as I could). The trip was terribly stressful, and I ended up spending more than I could afford anyway.

My husband and I have made many trips on almost no funds, but because we planned for it all, I had more fun than if I hadn't had a budget. Even when I only have $5 to spend, I have a lot more fun when I know that $5 can be spent without breaking the budget. However, if I'm spending money without KNOWING that I have the funds in the budget, it always ends up a stressful experience (even when after the fact, I learned that I did have the money).


I've discovered that calorie spending is pretty similar. I have a lot more fun and less stress with a budget than without one (but it is essential for me to include the little bit of "mad money" or "mad calories").

I just had a look at the Fitday website, it seems like it will be very handy tool to monitor my progress. Thanks for the tip.

Kaplods, have you or are you considering writing a book about your adventures in weight loss? I am sure you have the equivalent of a PhD in weight loss information - maybe budgeting, too, LOL!

I didn't exactly understand what an exchange program was, and now I do.

For me, I think the important thing is that I keep track of everything, whether I count or exchange. Then I have to think about what I have eaten or plan to eat. I tend to be a mindless eater and this makes me pay attention. I use the free FitDay and I think it is fine for my purposes.

I have been trying to create a lower calorie and fat salad dressing that I like. This always involves tasting as I go. Since I am using OK ingredients, I finally decided to just count the salad dressing tasting as 100 calories worth of Greek yogurt. I think that is probably an overestimate, but it gives me somthing to enter.

I have two other subjective ways of measuring calories. The first is how soon I feel hungry again [I don't seem to be affected by any particular food, just the calories]. The other is do my lips feel soft and smooth after eating? If yes, the meal has been oily or fatty. How's that for pure science?