I want to do calorie counting but I think it would hard if I was eating whole foods like chicken, veggies and fruit. It seems that its easier to calorie count if your eating packaged foods, am I wrong? Please enlighten me, lol

I use an online food journal that lets me input the recipies into it and it comes out with a calorie count for me. I insert the ingrediants and amounts then how many servings that makes and it works out the nutritial data so I can add it into my journal automatically. There are many online that are free and allow you to do that. I use nutrimirror but there is also nutridata and I am sure others.

I am a calorie counter who also follows the clean eating philosphy so to me whole fresh foods are just as important but that might not be a priority for all.

I typically have a really easy time calorie counting while striving to eat whole foods 99% of the time. I think the key to whole foods is just weighing things out.
Out eat a whole slew of veggies and fruits most days, but I weigh them. That way it's more precise. That goes for any whole grains, nuts, beans, meat etc. Just weigh it and eat. At first weighing seems time consuming. It really isn't since you have to prepare the food anyway. Plus I KNOW that I am only giving us (me and hubby) an actual serving. Rather than cook a hunk of meat or something and not know how much I actually had.
Honestly, eating prepackaged meals is not only expensive but really isn't a healthy way to eat in the long run. IMHO!

proudmommy ~ I posted this in my goal thread when you asked what I ate, but I didn't know if you'd go back to see if I replied, so here is what I wrote: (oh, and you don't have to eat whole foods...I was a huge fan of Lean Cuisines, Lean Pockets, Cheerios, and FiberOne bars!)

I ate everything I loved, just in moderation because I was counting calories. For the past 6 months I pretty much have eaten: whole grain english muffins, whole wheat toast, all-natural pb and fruit spread, multigrain cheerios (or cinnamon or chocolate cheerios) w/skim milk (the skim milk took a minute to get used to), baked cheetos, FiberOne bars, yogurt (both Light&Fit by Dannon and Chobani greek fruit yogurt), cheese sticks, baked chicken (topped with either salsa or eaten with laughing cow cheese wedges), popcorn (both air-popped with butter spray and the 100 calorie popcorn packs), Skinny Cow ice cream bars, jell-o sugar free pudding, chicken burritos, ground turkey tacos, Lean Cuisine meals for almost every single lunch, Lean Pockets when my calorie count was higher in the beginning, lots of frozen veggie boxes like snap peas and brussel sprouts. And if I had a day where I ate a LOT, I didn't let it freak me out. I just woke up the next day and started fresh!

Most of the food I eat isn't packaged. I just keep my food scale handy. It's so much easier today to calorie count than years ago. First, food scales are digital and have a "tare" feature that allows you to just weigh, zero out, and add something else to your plate to weigh. I like weighing my food rather than measuring it because not only do I think it's more accurate, but it also saves me clean up (I just add items to my one plate rather than having to use measuring cups, spoons, etc.). Also, I second the suggestion for using a calorie counting program. If you have a smart phone, I highly recommend an app called CALORIE COUNTER. It's free, and it is SO easy to just quickly enter foods. It's got a big database of almost any food, and you can add your own foods and save meals you prepare so that you can quickly access them again. I think many of us find ourselves eating many of the same meals (I know I do), and it's a breeze to just save those meals and easily choose them as part of the calorie journal in the app.

However, if you are just starting out and need some motivation to get started, you might be better off just using pre-packaged stuff. I know that's not ideal, but sometimes we have to do what we know we can and will do rather than what we would like to do. One of my sisters lost about 30 lbs., and she started out by calorie counting and eating Lean Cuisines and other types of pre-packaged meals. She eventually started eating whole foods again, but starting out with packaged meals made the inital start of her plan easier to handle, and she kept with it until she had the energy and motivation to switch to whole foods.

Agreed that it's easier with packaged foods, but not that much harder with whole foods. A digital food scale, nutrition lables and the internet are enough to get calories for virtually any food!

Most foods (whole and packaged) are easy to look up online, so it's really not all that hard to calorie count with whole foods.

Also, sometimes packaged foods are misleading. For frozen dinners or any other single serving package, it's usually pretty straighforward but when there are multiple servings it gets tricky.

For example a box of candy might say 210 calories per serving, and list the number of servings as "about 3" so you'd think the box has about 630 calories. Unfortunately I've found "about 3" to mean anything from barely more than 2 to almost 4 - so the calorie count for the whole box could be anywhere from 450 calories to 600 calories.

That's why I always use my food scale as a backup. If the serving size is listed as 144g (usually the gram weight is listed on packaged items) then that's how much I weigh out onto my scale.


I prefer exchange plans, because in the long run, they're easier to deal with than calories (in my opinion). For example most small pieces of fruits count as 1 fruit exchange (60-70 calories) and most large count as 2. Most nonstarchy veggies count as 1 veggie exchange (25 calories) per 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw. Almost all breads (unless they're fried or greasy) count as 1 starch exchange per ounce of bread.

You can look up exchange values online just like calories, and there are exchange counting books you can buy (I use Exchanges for All Occasions, and Choose Your Food: Exchange Lists for Diabetics).

For my food journal, I make a little checklist and just check off the foods as I eat them. Because the calorie counts are very similar for all the foods within an exchange group, I count calories without having to count each calorie.

I use an 1800 calorie reduced-carb exchange plan and when I've double checked the math by counting the calories (to double check) it always comes in within 100 calories of 1800.




If you eat a lot of junk food, or avoid certain food groups, exchange plans may not be for you, but I love it - because it makes whole food eating very "natural." In fact, it's the food I shouldn't be eating anyway that are hardest to count.

I think packaged foods are actually harder for a couple of reasons

1. Most are very deceptive in their counts
2. They are rarely as satisfying as a homemade meal because they tend to use up the stated calories with things that are calorie dense. (sauces, cheeses, oils, etc)

If you get a good scale and use a recipe analyser like this one ( http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php ) it is quite easy to make healthful meals using good quality foods. Ones that will keep you fuller longer and meet more of your nutritional requirements

I do have certain "cheats" like my protein shakes and bars and I happen to love Boca/Morning Star Farms faux "meat" products but for the most part I buy fresh and make my own meals.

I have a busy household -3 teenagers still at home and a granddaughter that I babysit just about everyday while her parents go to school and/or work, plus 2 dogs of my own and working with a rescue- but really, when you're making healthy meals they are easy to throw together and it hasn't stressed me out yet.

It also better fits my need for absolute control

i think both are equal , I use caloriecount.com it works pretty well . i can input anything that im eating and it gives me the opion of measurment(i.e cup,oz, serving) then it gives me a list of brands and i can choose the one that im using . for me i can use it to creat meals with low cals that will fill me up the most and i can plan out an entire day from just what i have in the house. the one i use has a activity log that you can input what kind of exersie you do with the amount of time and it calculates how many calories you burned. i also track my weight loss and how many oz of water you get in the day.
but anyways... It works for me becuase I suck at actully weighing my food out . so i can measure things with a measuring cup. but it may not work for you .
I think its in the tools you use to succseed.

Awesome!!!! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer, your a rockstar girl How did you figure out your calorie count? sorry I keep bugging you with all these questions,lol Thanks again

I just started calorie counting, but I have been using: www.fitday.com on and off for years. I can get all my food counts, weight goal/changes/ journal, exercise etc. on it. It really helps to see where my calories are coming from and so forth.

Hi Proudmommy

I pretty much stick to whole foods and find the counts on-line and use a accurate digital scale and measuring cups/spoons to weigh stuff. I do eat some packaged foods like yogurt and fibre one cereal and a few different oatmeal products, but have found that I can have a lot more food, (bang for my buck) if I eat homemade/ whole foods. It is a little tricky at first, but after a while you'll have everything memorized and it becomes second nature.

I have nothing against pre-packaged foods except they can contain some funky ingredients and flavor enhancers, (msg and mystery chemicals) but have tried a few for a treat, and some haven't tasted too bad.

ETA: You are such a beauty...as is the little girl in your avatar!

Another wholefoods-eating FitDay user here, and yes, it's really easy. Although FitDay does have its quirks, for instance you need to select raw vegetables because if you select the cooked ones it assumes that you add massive amounts of salt and fat. There are a few types of software doing the same thing, where you just enter in the ingredient and it works out the nutritiona data for you. MyFitnessPal is very popular.

I'm trying to remember the last time I ate processed food. Not since I started dieting, certainly, and the few ready meals I've had have been the very healthy variety. I save my favourite recipes, and you can also copy and paste foods if you, say, eat leftovers or make the same dish the next day.

Thank you and your weightloss is amazing!!! I hope to be successful like you on my journey

i eat mostly clean and never have had a problem with tracking online. It just comes down to measuring things.