silversparkle - you are doing so good so far!!! 21 lbs is a great accomplishment!!
The reason I think keeping track of calories going in is so important is that you might be surprised to know what your counts really are. If you are burning less calories than you are consuming, you aren't going to lose. I know it can be time consuming at first - but after a while you can pretty much at least ball park it. It's just one more way to be more aware of what you are eating. There are other sites that give pretty useful info on calorie counts - lemme go find some links.

Someone else suggested nutridiary...Dr. Phils book has a pretty comprehensive list of foods with calorie counts...as do other books. It's all a matter of making a new habit.

I'm not saying that calorie counting is the best or only way to go...just that it works for me

I went to my Fitday account and put in my food that I have had so far today. Is there a place I can go to find out if I am above the calories, fat, carbs..... I have a total of 732 calories so far today, so I am find there. But I dont know about these other catagories! I am on my way to the gym so I will put that in later. Thanks for all your help and insight!

May I suggest that for a week or so you just input your food and not worry about the other stuff. A lot of times if you are new to calorie counting it is best to just log everything you eat (no matter how high or low) so you can get a realistic idea of how many calories you are consuming and then work on modifying it. Once you've seen what you are eating in a day, if you lower the amount by 500 (but not going below 1200 a day) that will mathematically allow you to lose 1 pound a week (3500 calories). It really just takes a little while to get used to seeing where you are at and if you need to eat more or less than what you are now.

I know when I first started calorie counting I was shocked that I was consuming between 3000-4500 calories a day. I started out by aiming for about 2500 calories a day for a week or so before lowering it to 2000, 1900, 1800, and then 1700. Of course right now I pretty much know most of my calories are and just try to focus instead on portion sizes and making exercise my #1 priority. HTH.

Hi Silversparkle,

I agree that it's a good idea to use a program like Fitday or Nutridiary (I use Nutridiary). I've found it's very useful to keep tabs on how many calories I'm eating. Before, I WAY underestimated how much I was eating. You could also do it with a calorie counter book and a piece of paper! The benefit of Nutridiary, etc. is that you can see how much protein, carbs and fat you are consuming - I was amazed how much fat I was eating when I thought I was eating fairly low carb.

I'm now eating around 1500 - 1600 calories a day. When I was on 1200 calories I was hungry all the time and I didn't lose as fast! Everyone has a different metabolism, but I wouldn't recommend eating less than 1200 cals.

Do you like soups? I've found them a life saver as you can make so many different soups and they are very easy to make. You can make a big pot and freeze in individual serving sizes. Most soups aren't very high in calories and you can include any kind of meat or vegetables. The canned ones are usually very high in salt, which can make you retain water.

Another good trick is to use one of your trays from a Smart Ones meal and use it instead of a plate. Just fill the sections with meat and veggies that you have cooked from scratch and it helps to keep the serving sizes down. It does take a bit of time to cook meals rather than buy them, but you can always cook something and freeze in individual servings.

Don't be discouraged if the scale doesn't budge for a while. It happens to me a lot and I just keep on keeping on until it starts to go down again - and it will for you too!

Barbygirl43 is right - don't try to do too much at first...just get used to logging what you eat. But (just 'cause ya asked )- if you want to see reports in fitday- there is a link to look at reports. You can look at what percentage of your calories is fat and so on. There is also a link titled Guidelines that has FAQ's...helpful if you want more info on how much of something your body needs.

Silversparkle -- You mention that when you make a salad you don't want to start counting calories of every little thing you put in there. Salads are the least of your worries! Specially if you have a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, onions, ALL those vegies you can eat a tub full of and it won't be very many calories... So don't worry about those veggies, I usually don't even input them into my fitday and consider them "free" calories so to speak...

heh. That is so true -- it is a pain to log all those veggies (I use nutridiary). I like to look at nutrients too, so I just enter a generic typical salad (with the veggies I usually use) as a "meal" and keep it as a guesstimate. Makes it easy.

This is EXACTLY what I do. I have no time and no money (welcome to the life of a recent college grad living on her own and working 2 jobs ), so I buy my meat and veggies and whatever all separately and cook on one day a week (usually Sunday). I have invested in many Gladware containers, so I just make my own meals that way. This helps, since I don't have time to go shopping more than once a week (and often, only once every other week). It also gives me a variety to choose from because I can make pastas, stir-fry, chicken breast, and whatever else I want all on one day to have on hand all week (or longer, as some things make more than just 5-7 servings). My freezer is always overflowing with food

The idea about using the frozen dinner trays as your plates for this is an awesome one! I hadn't even considered it--then again, I don't eat frozen meals anymore because of all that sodium

Jill -- I've seen Gladware type containers with sections for different foods to freeze in...

Yup, I have some of those...and round ones and square ones and rectangular ones and deep ones and shallow ones...

As far as excercise goes, maybe you don't have to switch from elliptical to something else, like biking. If you like the elliptical stick with it. Maybe try doing intervals on it instead of just a steady speed. That could be enough for you to notice the difference.

Smartone and Lean Cuisines and the like do not have adequate nutrition to call them a meal. For any one on a budget, they should be off limits. They are a very poor food investment. If you are serious about losing, you will find the time to do what is necessary. Eating a lot of overpriced, chemical laden food is going to backfire in the long run.

jillybean,

I have been doing intervals on the elliptical. Sometimes I do the backward thing...I can always feel the different muscles working when I do it too! I go for five minutes forward, five minutes backward, five minutes forward.....so on.