I eat a lot of chicken. A LOT. Only dark meat. I've been calculating it as 40 calories per ounce (boneless, skinless). However, I saw an online site that I respect that lists it as almost 60 calories per ounce (58), which is significant considering how much I eat. I'll burn through almost a pound of chicken a day, so I could be as much as 300 calories off if I'm wrong on my counting.

What does anyone else use for calories per ounce of dark-meat chicken?

Unfortunately, I think dark meat chicken is about 60 calories an ounce. Maybe you can add in some light meat chicken (half and half) and that way it'll bring your calorie count down.

Also, I think light meat chicken actually has more protein and less fat, so that's a plus as well!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I hate white-meat chicken. To me, it's dry and tasteless. Honestly, I'd rather cut my amounts and still eat dark meat assuming I'm wrong in my numbers.

If I were to eat the white meat, I'd have to add bar-b-que sauce or something to it to give it flavor, and then I'd just be driving up the calorie count to the point where I might as well be eating the dark meat.

I just did some online comparisons on ten different nutritional sites. Their calories per ounce of dark meat chicken ranged from a low of 32.5 oz. to a high of 60 oz. - almost double the low number. Is it really that hard to figure out how many calories are in such a common food? To be safe, I can't take the chance that I may be wrong and plateau, so I have to assume that it's 60 calories/oz. and eat much less than I've been portioning to myself. How aggravating.

Id bet the "low" was a cooked ounce vs an uncooked ounce.
i always count chicken cooked. White meat ~ 45 cals per ounce cooked.
SO ya, 60 cals/ounce cooked sounds about right for dark meat

Have you thought about bison? It actually has less fat than chicken and is a red meat.

Yes, 60-ish calories an ounce looks about right. And a pound of chicken a day is screaming for diversifying your protein. I'm a mono eater with a fairly boring daily diet, too, but eating more than 6-8 oz of the same meat is not maximizing the enzymatic and nutritional bang for the buck. Get thee some fish or red meat!

Actually yes it is hard to figure out how much calories are in such a common food, because if I have a chicken and you have a different chicken, my chicken could contain 60 calories an ounce and your chicken could contain 32.

There are so many factors that all calorie guide's have to be considered estimates. The breed, age, gender, diet, and probably even how much stress the chicken was under, how the meat was processed, where it comes from on the chicken (leg versus thigh for example) and maybe thousands of other factors all have affects on it's calorie range.

Same is true for an apple. The variety, where it's been grown, how much sunshine it got, the nutrients in the soil, when it's been picked... there's a tremendous variety.

In most cases, it just doesn't matter. Pick a calorie counting resource that you trust, and use it. There is no "down side" to being wrong. If you're overestimating or underestimating your calorie intake it still doesn't matter, because you're going to adjust your calorie intake based on your results.

There's no need to worry about it UNTIL your weight stalls, and even then you don't have to be more accurate, you just have to adjust YOUR calorie level. You're going to be "off" no matter which calorie counting resource you use, because the food you're eating isn't going to be the exact food that they tested in the lab to get their results.

You can take several resources' data and average them, or you can just use one and realize that you're going to be a little off on each and every food you eat. It usually works better (in my experience) to just use one source and go with it and adjust your intake based on your results. The margin of error is pretty similar, so in the long-term it really doesn't matter. Heck even if you were underestimating your calories by a whopping 50% it wouldn't really matter, because you'd just have to continue adjusting your calories acording to your results. Heck, for that matter you could be off by 200%. You and others might be confused as to why you can only eat 500 calories per day to maintain your weight, not realizing that "your" calories were 3 times bigger than anyone else's.

If you use one of the top sites, you're not going to be off by that much. Say you ARE getting 300 calories more per day than you think you are - that means you'll lose about a half pound less per week than if you were exactly on the spot. But see, it doesn't matter, because you're going to set your calorie intake based upon your results. So say you're eating 1500 calories now (or think you are) whether or not you're exactly right, if you're not losing at a rate you're happy with, you'll cut your calorie intake. So you may actually be eating 1800 calories a day (instead of the 1500 you think you are). So if you decide to cut your calories from 1500 to 1200 and still eat the same amount of chicken, you'll start losing (even though now you're eating 1500 calories, but think you're eating 1200).

What you are eating matters. What you think you're eating doesn't. You need to be "close" but you don't have to be very close. And your margin of error is always going to be there.

This imprecision used to drive me nuts (it actually drove me nuttier once I realized it was inevitable - because there is no "most accurate" source. There's always going to be a calorie range for a specific food because all chickens and all apples aren't created equal. You can get two apparently identical apples of identical weights, grown on the same tree with different calorie counts, because one got more sunshine than another).

Exchange plan dieting helped me overcome the discomfort with the imprecision. For example, on an exchange plan, you choose a calorie level, but you don't count calories you count exchanges. Each change has a calorie value, but it's based on an average (so fruit exchanges average 70 calories, but an individual choice can range from 50 to 75 calories - it's just esaier to choose "one small piece of fruit or 1/2 of a large piece of fruit" than it is to try determine how many calories precisely are in a specific piece of fruit).

With trial and error, I've found that I actually lose better on an exchange plan, because it's less stress for me. I'd get so stressed over "precision" that I'd also convince myself that I'd "blown it" when faced with imprecision.

I'm not saying you should (or shouldn't) switch to an exchange plan. I'm just saying pick a number and stick with it. If you want to pick 30 or 60 really doesn't matter in the scheme of things, because you're going to let your RESULTS determine whether or not you're "close enough."

I compromised somewhat and am now counting chicken thighs as 50 calories/oz. instead of 40. It's near the top-end of what people are using, so I feel I should be safe. But it's tough to portion less chicken on my plate, especially when I get so few calories to begin with. But eating less certainly does make the food that one does eat that much tastier, doesn't it?