I have counted calories a little before in the past. I always used fitday before and sadley never stuck with it. I would try to write things down and enter them later and this would work a few days and then I'd get lazy or frusterated with the time it took to enter and look up things and give up. Well now I have a great app for the iphone my DH spoiled me with for my birthday. I am excited because instead of spending timetrying to recall and enter food when near a compurter, I can just put it in the phone as I put it in my mouth. A great tool I am very excited about. And when I bought the app I reserached and got the one that was the most highly rated and recommended. I am starting the calorie counting today but have run into some problems I've never dealt with before.
I don't know what source to believe!!! My app says one grapefruit in 104. Sounded high so I researched on calorie count (a source I used often when fitday didnt have something) and it says a large grapefruit is 56 calories.

How will I know iif I am getting accurate counts? Or is this something that I simply need to figure is the error factor and just push forwward and adjust calorie goals if the weightloss isnt happeneing because of underestimation?

I use the loseit app on my iPod touch. I would go check several sources to see what the consensus is and fall in the middle somewhere. Since counting is not always exact do the best you can.

That's what I do too. I'll put it into my livestrong app, and see what it says, and then I'll google it from my iPhone to see what other places say... Then I enter it "custom" on the high end of the average!

GL!

Thanks for the advice. I suppose high end is the safest bet too. ha ha its like i'm trying to cheat hoping to go with whatever the lowest calorie count I get! But I think I will stick to the app at 104 calories per grapefruit. I did notice that the weights on both are very different. While I wont always be able to weight my food. I think that doing so when at home will be helpful.

I don't know if a grapefuit would have 104... it would have to be the size of my head, lol... I might average that at something like 75.

I want to know what a 104 calorie one looks like... Maybe they mean ALL of it? Rind and all? Hhm...

Yeah thats why I felt the need to look it up elsewhere. I saw on calorie counter a cup of the edible portion is about that many calories. So I used water to fill my eated halves (I felt clever to think of this ) and low and behold it was about 3/4 of a cup. So you were pretty right on with the 75. I definately think that I will check up on things, at least until I get to where I know what calories should be. I have a good friend who has counted calories off and on for most of her teen to adult life. She can look at almost everything and throw out a calorie estimate right away. She never looks up anything anymore. I just find that amazing.

Kinda a different topic here, but one thing that scares me about the calorie counting is mixed food dishes. Things like casserole and homemade soups and stews. I don't want to end up like my formentioned friend and live off prepackaged meals alot of the time because she KNOWS the calories without a doubt. I want to eat whole healthy foods i make at home. But trying to calculate calories in these is a little intimidating. I figure I will look up what seems closest and hope for the best.

ma26, if you do cooking yourself a lot, and can write down what you put into a recipe, there are sites that can calculate (approximately) the calorie count per portion for the ingredients you enter.

I use this sometimes and create a custom food for it on fitday or other times I write down how much of everything I use in a recipe and then divide it by the number of serves and put each item separately into my fitday. It does take a bit longer, but I find it's worth it - sometimes using the generic calorie count for say - chicken curry - overestimates hugely especially if you're thinking about your health when you're cooking.

Here's the site I use to work out calories for a recipe: http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

I hope that helps some!

Howdy-
calorie counting is not an exact science. And it doesn't have to be, happily. I use 2 apps daily, plus fitday when a particularly hectic time is coming up and I need to preplan. First app is Nutrition Menu, second is LoseIt. I use both because I can cross reference calorie counts between the two and know if I am in my range. When at home, I enter in my custom foods, make combo meals or recipes, and after a year, it is easy peasy to know the calorie counts.

I also have a restaraunt app for traveling and such. I attribute my fabulous success in part to these apps. Hard to forget the tbs of guacamole or bite of flour tortilla if my iTouch is always with me. LoseIt has an online back up component. Another great feature.

I do not count calories burned, and I eat lower than my goal range LoseIt gives me.

Enjoy your toy. I do. Just loaded bridge onto it.

I input my own foods, so I have each fruit and vegetable logged in like for example:

Apple, Gala, 1 oz - however many calories per oz, then I weigh it and do it by serving.
So if my apple was 6 oz, I say I had 6 one ounce servings.

I look up calories per ounce on nutrition websites, like fatsecret.

Yep, an average seems to be your best bet. I cross reference different sites and most say a grapefruit is around 80 calories.

Good luck! I just recently started counting calories again too. It takes a little while to adjust but the results are worth it.

I thought it would be hard too but I just write down what I put in a dish. For instance, if I am making spaghetti I write down the total amount of calories in the box of pasta(i.e., 210 cals per serviing X8 servings per package=1680), jar of sauce, beef, olive oil, etc. and then divide that amount by the portions per dish(which is like 8 for a box of spaghetti I think). You at least get a ballpark of calories and you'll be pretty close as long as you portion it correctly when you eat. No need to live off boxed meals. You can do this.

Oh and that was pretty clever to think about using water to measure!

Thanks for all the great advice ladies!!!
Karen925-A second app is a great idea. Thanks for that!
Brown- I was thinking I probably need to start weighing stuff. I would hate to be pluggin along thinking I'm on a great track and not be losing weight because of misguided eyeballing technique.

Thanks everyone for the websites and input. I will definately start weighing food, and for now I will look stuff up a couple places. I still find it crazy how much sites can differ!

I called this sticker shock. It will wear off as you become more experienced at CC.