I ballpark calories to the nearest 100 (rounding up). I know it's not exact, but unless scientific measuring machines are involved, it's never going to be 100% exact anyway. I use it to keep accountable, but I don't let it wear me down.

I've been doing it so long, it's pretty easy for me. A poster above mentioned having to figure out recipes and such - I just estimate. If it's too complicated and unwieldy, I won't do it. If something is easy (like tonight, we ate at Pick Up Stix and the nutrition was online, cool beans), I use that. If it's not easy, I do my best and just keep on going. I figure, sometimes I'll be too low, sometimes I'll be too high, over time it will average out. For me, the important part is the accountability - making good choices, writing them down.

Exactly.

To the OP. I personally think everyone should count calories at least for a while to get an idea of about how many calories different foods have.

That said, if you hate counting calories, than don't do it. Just eat lean meats and vegtables with a serving or two of fruit a day and you'll lose weight. (this is called Paleo) The primary reason to count calories is because it allows a lot of flexibility in the kinds of foods you eat.

Yes, extremely so. So I don't calorie count.

I think it works AMAZINGLY well for some, not for others. Like most things in life.

I choose to do intuitive eating and have made general rules that I go by: little to no sugar, only whole grains, well-balanced meals (relatively low carb), lots of fruits and veggies and meat. I also weigh daily to keep tack of how I'm doing and to remind myself every morning why I'm doing it. It's worked well for me but I know that system might not work for others.

It's rather a personal decision. Calorie counting is insanely stressful for me, it actually makes me overeat because I think about food too often. I do make myself aware of calories in food but beyond that I eat until I'm full but make sure that the foods that I'm putting into my mouth are health.

I find calorie counting to be much easier than having to wear extra large sizes again.

This is what I do, and it's a great way for me not to have to write anything down or use an app in my phone. It's very easy to keep track of round numbers like that in my head.

I generally round to the nearest 100 or 50 depending on the item. I keep a tally in my head and then can decide what I can or can't have later in the day.

I think I would find calorie counting exhausting too if I was measuring and counting every single calorie!

I use myfitnesspal.com and actually love calorie counting now. -- I feel i am in charge. Since I eat same things over and over again, I created recipes and now with just a few clicks I am able to input the info.

Echoing a lot of people here, but the reason I like calorie counting is it's so flexible. I don't have to wonder how much I derailed my week after I eat some fries - I just take a look at the calories and factor it in. There's no "good" or "bad' foods, but I do have to be mindful how much I eat so I'm satiated within calories. It seems to work for me.

That said, I eat out a lot and a lot of pre-packaged foods. I do find cooking + calorie counting to be more frustrating as it's a lot of additional math. Especially if you're cooking multiple servings at once and the trying to guesstimate how much you've taken.

Still though - I don't sweat it - if I go out to eat and I don't know their nutrition information, I make what I think is a good choice and look up the info later if it's available. Sometimes I'm unpleasantly surprised, but then I learn something and I also make a mental note of what to get if I go there again.

I find it exhausting, but it's the only thing that works for me, so I do it anyway.

Just for a different approach, I don't guesstimate - I measure. For example, yesterday I made a big batch of chicken curry. When it was done, I scooped it into a container for storage using a 1 cup measure. I counted out 10 cups. I know exactly what I put into it, so it's no problem for me to add up the calories in the entire batch and divide by 10 to get the calories per cup.

When I serve myself later in the week dinner, I just measure how much I'm serving myself - 3/4 cup, a cup and a half, whatever - and I know the calorie count.

Again, it takes a little effort up front - but it's not THAT much effort once you get accustomed to doing it. And I stand by what I said before ... you cannot lose weight without some effort, no matter what your plan.

Every diet is some sort of form of counting calories. WW Points, Southbeach, Akins, Paleo, etc. Losing weight is a mathematical equation -a way to create a calorie deficit - it consists of burning more calories than you consume, and there's hundreds of ways to do that. The simplicity of calorie counting is free & easy & that's what I like about it. BUT YES IT TAKES EFFORT. Any diet takes effort! And yes, it can be "exhausting" - but only in the beginning. Once you get a firm grip on what foods have how many calories, it gets pretty easy from there.

Like others, I have found that using an on-line counter works best for me, & I happen to like FitDay.

Also, what really helped me was to make a list of every single food that I love. Everything that I eat - everything that I'm willing to buy, cook, digest. Then I looked up calorie counts for these foods. I took care to measure what a "serving size" is of these foods. I input all of it into FitDay. Now I don't have to "count" - it's pretty much done for me - I just enter it & BOOM - done.

So yes, OF COURSE IT TAKES EFFORT. Every diet does. It also takes effort to BE fat. Effort to get dressed when "nothing fits". Effort to climb a flight of stairs when you're huffing & puffing. Effort to enjoy the simplest of activities when your knees are killing you - all because you're fat. And you know what else? If they ever make an effortless diet that works, none of us will ever be fat again. But until then, you'll have to put some effort into it if you truly want to lose weight, no matter what form of creating a calorie deficit you choose.

I've been counting for so long now it feels like second nature to me. It helps that I tend to have the same things most days for breakfast and lunch. Dinner I tend to put abit more effort in but I normally end up making an approximation of calories based on the portion. It's snacking that would make me lose count so I just try to eat at meal times, makes it so much simpler. I also tend to allocate calories to meals instead of days, I.e 250cals breakfast, 400cals lunch, 500cals dinner, dessert 150cals. This way I know i'm keeping in my daily calories without having to "budget" for meals later on.

I disagree to some extent with this. Every diet is some sort of calorie deficit but not necessarily calorie counting. Diets such as Paleo, South Beach Diet, intuitive eating (ok, more a general eating philosophy than a diet per se) involve restrictions and watching your hunger signals but you're not actually counting anything (as compared to the point system in weight watches or calories in calorie counting). Basically, it's a choice of restrictions vs. counting. Then again, some people do both and yet others to purely intuitive eating with no restrictions.

Like other posters, I don't get overwhelmed because I plan ahead. My breakfasts stay relatively similar, and my snacks either a serving of fruit or one of maybe 6-8 different things that I already know calorie counts for.

There are maybe 10 different soups I make that I know the calorie counts for and I tend to stay with those for lunch.

Dinners are always different. I like to experiment with recipes (most of the places where I look for new recipes have calorie counts provided for me). I plan a day ahead, so I know what my entire day's meals will be. I just follow the plan I provided for myself.

It's like balancing a checkbook. If I decide to have both a piece of cheese AND some turkey in my breakfast sandwich (an extra 60 calories or so), I'll make sure my dinner meal is something on the lower end of the calorie range of dinners I have readily available. If my soup lunch is 100 calories instead of 200, I know I have the wiggle room to have spinach ravioli with a lot of veggies and pasta sauce (one of my favorites) for dinner, and not something on the lower caloric end of my dinners, like chili.

When you cook, it's a great idea to portion it and label it with the calorie count. If you make up a random meal, type/write it out with the calorie count. Do the math once to reap the benefits every time you make a particular dish.

Once you're really familiar with the ingredients you buy, you can swap them out knowing everything will be relatively similar. I buy about six different bread products and I know the calorie counts of each are between 70-100, so swapping one for another is not a big deal.

Calorie counting makes me neurotic. I'm too paranoid about going over, and then I'm paarnoid about going under. But at the same time, I find myself slowly trying to lower my calories because "lower must be better" which always backfires. Overall, the whole experience makes me batty. So I don't do it.

I follow SouthBeach instead and it works great for me. A big part of it is that I feel so much better without a lot of carbs, and my body thrives on it. But, mostly, it allows me to kind of naturally cut calories without stressing about it. Every once in awhile, I'll "audit" a few days to count up and make sure I'm hitting a healthy range, but otherwise, I just eat. It takes more planning in some ways, as there are foods that are off limits, and places that I really have a difficult time finding something that is on plan that I still like, but it feels a lot more effortless to me.

To each their own, but CCing wasn't the right plan for me.

You have to be accountable for everything that goes into your mouth if you want to be successful at weight loss. The best thing to do is sit down one day and plan the menu for the upcoming week then you don't have to think about it all the time.