Hi all:

So I guess I am a calorie counter and I know it works, but sometimes I struggle with knowing what to do. Like today I feel like I ate close to 1200 calories but I still feel starving. I struggle with disordered eating and depression so knowing whether I am actually hungry or not is a huuuge struggle for me.

I find it is kind of easy to spread out my calories through the day when I know exactly what I have eaten; but if there is something that I dont know how many calories are in it..then I worry. Like today I made a semi healthy pasta dish or my boyfriend and I for lunch but have no clue how many calories were in it. I try to guesstimate but then I'm like well to be on the safe side--lets say 500..which could be way high. But if it is not high and I eat because I think I am hungry then I worry I will jeopardize my progress.

HI!
First off, where did you get the number 1200? That is pretty much the suggested minimum, which means most people need more (just to be able to function, you know? you still lose weight), for instance, i count to 15-1600 cals, and you weigh a smidge more than me, so your body may even need more, but if it's a doc recommendation, then I guess go with that...

Please know that moat people need to trial and error to see how many cals they need,

second, your homemade pasta dilemma, I can help with that! I signed up for a site called caloriecount.about.com and it has a recipe program, where you type in what you put in your recipe, and how many servings, and it tells you the calories. Now this does mean you have to weigh the ingredients, but then you know!

I know caloriecount does this, but I am sure a lot of other site would too, try google-ing "recipe analyzer" and see what comes up! Find one you like, then you'll always know!

Good luck! It's a good feeling to eat healthier!

Yea I just figured that 1200 would be safe...but I guess since I work out an hour or 2 a day I should eat more.

I hate that trial and error stuff because if I eat a certain amount and do not lose, I feel like there are so many factors that could be contributing to the lack of weight loss...not just the amount of calories..so I never am sure.


I will try that site out!! Thanks!

well, we're about the same weight, and I am losing pretty quick (1-2 lbs a week) on 15-1600, so try that, and if you don't lose after a week or two, go to 1400? If you work out that much, you may be able to lose on 17-1800! I'd start at 1600, and adjust up or down from there. (I'm 5'6.5" if that helps comparisons! )

Thanks!! That site said 1500 calories...what does the Burn Meter mean???

I definitely understand your frustration with trial and error. You're then stuck wondering, "Is this a stall or am I just eating too many calories?" or "am I hungry because I'm eating too little or because of the food choices I'm making?" Unfortunately, I suspect it's a necessary evil if you want to reach that sweet spot of eating enough to feel satisfied for the long haul, yet paring down enough to lose weight.

I agree with others who say that 1200 seems low for a starting point. I'd be ravenous on that amount. I do 1500 calories a day and aside from a slight stall this past week (which I expected because I had a 2100-calorie Christmas Day and didn't watch sodium intake), I've lost well and felt great.

You might want to make a small investment in a food scale. It's easy to weigh your portions and it feels less...I don't know, less dictatorial than measuring cups (which is weird because it's actually more accurate). For things like cereal and pasta, you just pop your empty bowl on the scale, hit the tare/zero button to zero it out, then add your serving to the bowl. Voila! And you don't even have to wash any extra measuring cups/spoons.

With calorie-dense foods like pasta, measuring or weighing portions is especially important. It's really easy to overdo; a 200-calorie serving of pasta is small compared to, say, a 200-calorie serving of grits/polenta or of spaghetti squash. The great thing about calorie counting is that you can have the pasta--but I've learned to make pasta an occasional thing because there're other less calorie-dense options to choose that'll take up more space on the plate.

Recipe calculators are great fun to play with and there are many of them to try. After a little while, you'll develop a good sense for how calorific stuff is; I find it fun to guesstimate, then plug in ingredients and see how close I was able to come. I'm getting noticeably better at the game the longer I'm counting calories.

It's called Calorie Counting for a reason - you have to count calories. Not just guess.

You need to measure your pasta and your other ingredients and put them into something like DailyPlate or Sparkpeople so that you know how many calories you are eating at every meal.

"Feeling like you ate 1200 calories" and "having no clue how many calories" were in a dish you made yourself is a sure way to fail. You could have eaten 800 calories today, or 2000. You'll never know unless you actually count the calories.

You really do need to find ways to record everything you eat (and drink) if you're going to calorie count!!

There are lots of good websites to help, like daily plate, sparkpeople.

You can even learn how to count dishes you make at home!!

seagirl-- your post sounded a little condescending by the way. You may or may not have meant it that way..but it did. I am not overly sensitive, I just try to avoid forums where people are like that. I was on another where everyone thought they knew everything because they went from 300 pounds to 150 doing it this way so their way was the best and treated people with questions and concerns like they were idiots.

I understand it is called COUNTING..I have lost weight with it in the past. And I am not guessing from now on I was just giving an example of how it can be challenging to count every single thing. It is hard to know how many calories are in something when you did not make it like if you are at a friends dinner party or out to dinner with colleagues. I understand I will need measure everything out and all that; I plan to from now I was just expressing my initial concerns.

I have started at a website given to me by Andejean. That is working out well. It seems as though the pasta dish I made was less calories than I thought.

I agree with everyone who said 1200 seems low for a starting point.

I also find it easier to plan my day in advance rather than count as I go.

Hi ktw and welcome to 3FC. I agree with the other posters that 1200 is too low for you. If you start that low, your body will get used to surviving on that few calories and you might plateau. Generally when we plateau we drop our calories. If you are currently eating 1200, there is not much lower that you can go without causing some harm to your body.

I would suggest that you eat between 1500-1600 calories and see if you lose weight with that. If not, then you can move down to 1400. We all had to do this by trial and error and what works for me might not work for you so you will have to find your own method that works.

I would also suggest that you buy a food scale and start weighing and measuring. I use caloriecount and it seems to be fairly accurate. I love that they have several food items in their database. Try it and see and let us know how you are doing!

Good luck!

Glad the site is working out for you! I love it! As for burn meter, I think that is what they figure your body is burning if you sit on your butt all day and do nothing. Every body is different, so that is just an estimate. Then if you go to your activity log and enter what you did as a work out, you will see your burn meter go up - because it is calculating in the calories you've burned doing those exercises! I love that site so much! can you tell!

Keep up the hard work, and keep us posted on your success!

I sometimes find it challenging to count too - which is why I've shied away from making a ton of things that takes too much time to figure out (I've got two little kids, who make it difficult at times to focus!!). But, using the recipe analyzers really are awesome - so I've made an effort to do that, and it's worked out really well. If I'm somewhere where I don't know the calorie counts (like a restaurant) I pick the healthiest choice and then use fitday and guess high on how much I ate. I use fitday everyday to count calories - I like it for the custom options and I find it very accurate too generally. I eat around 1500 calories a day. If you're exercising possibly 1-2 hours per day, I would definitely think a few more hundred calories would be a good idea, especially if you're feeling hungry.

Thanks everyone! Yea I am going to try and stick with 1500 per day and see how that goes. I do have a food scale and was using that for a while. I will start using it again!

I tend to eat the same things. So when things are hard to figure, like Chili for example, I use a recipe analyzer (I use the sparkpeople one). Once I figured out all my ingredients, I needed to know servings. My husband thought I was crazy when I measured out a whole pot of chili, one cup at a time, just to see how many 1 cup servings it made. Then I put it in fitday as a 1 cup serving of homemade chili and now it's easy when we have that for dinner. If fitday ever went away I would be devastated!!