i've been trying to lose weight for a long time, but half-heartedly... now i'm ready to really give this my all without starving myself or purging food (which i have indeed done, and it's sad to say that that's the only way i've ever been successful in losing weight). i want to be healthy, but i could never figure out how i'm supposed to count calories to begin with...
for instance, my mother and i typically cook our own food from scratch. which is a good habit, but how do u count those calories? it seems that the only way to efficiently decipher how many calories u've eaten is to only eat pre-packaged foods. how do u all figure out how many calories something is when there's no marking for the food?
this is something that's bugged me for a while, hopefully u guys can share ur tips with me.
) before adding it to the pot or pan and write it down on a little block of paper I keep in the kitchen. And then, either while the food is cooking or sometimes later, I go to the page where I record my calories (I'm using a German one because it has all the food I buy here; I think fitday.com is a US one) and put everything I put in my food in (well, only half of it, because the other half gets eaten by DH *lol*). 
