I have been trying to count my calories for awhile now and its seems like the more I do the calorie counting the more I go over my calories for the day. I try and eat healthy and make good decisions about the foods that I eat. I just go over everyday. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Please Help!

Do you log them someplace, like an app or online? I find that helps me A LOT...

Yea I log them on Sparkpeople.com. It does seem to help me a little but I seem to go over in the evening anyway.

It's interesting....

For the first part of my weight loss, I kind of "guesstimated" daily calories. I did count, but just kept a running count of my calories in my head each day. Then, I began meticulously logging each and every calorie, and like you, I'd go over. I'd look at the calories written down before me and I'd almost rebel against it, if that makes sense.

What I've concluded is that when I'm too restrictive with myself, I go way over my calories eventually. Maybe it's that 1200-1300 calories is too low somedays, and I should just add a few extra. When I was "guesstimating", chances are my calories were slightly higher. And it was okay-- I was still dropping pounds.

Today, I do still log my calories, but I wonder if this is actually somewhat harmful to me. I mean, it's important to stay in a calorie range, but by being so strict, it seems I set myself up for failure. I'm still struggling with all of this myself, and that's after years of successful calorie counting.

What number have you set for yourself? Do you go over that by roughly the same amount every time? Is it because you are dang hungry, or does it have more to do with the process of tracking?

If you are going over because you are very hungry, you might think about upping your calorie limit a bit.

Here's another thought. My SO wanted to lose a few pounds (and support me) so he joined in logging calories with me. He found that he is most successful when he eats very sparingly during the day, and "saves" most of his calories for the evening hours.

I can do great throught out the day but when I get home im really hungry and end up eating too much in the evening. Then I feel horrible about it. I feel like I have to be strict or im not going to get anywhere.

Some people start counting their calories with their evening meal (6 pm)
and finish up after lunch next day - that way if you have more in evenings,
you would have lighter breakfast or lunch. Just a thought!

bandit - that's a really great idea! I'm going to try that.

You don't have to be "super strict" to get somewhere. I'm not sure how many calories you are aiming for, but it is SO important to make a goal that is not too hard for you to reach.

If you feel like you keep failing and failing, you'll eventually give up - you are human. It would be better if you made your goal more attainable and lost more slowly.

Maybe start eating 1800 cal. a day for a week? When you have accomplished that, you will naturally acquire confidence and can move your calories down to 16/1700 if you feel like it is a good idea.

If you look around on this site, you'll find tons of people eating anywhere from 12-1900 a day, exercising, and actively losing.

I just hope you understand that 1200 is a super hard amount to not go over.

That is a really great idea, Im going to try counting calories from my evening meal. I never thought of that. I am aiming for about 1650 calories a day. I will see if that works adjusting my time to count calories.

Are you taking a multi-vitamin? If not you might want to think about starting. I've read that adding a multi-vitamin to your diet can help curb cravings.

I've also read that it can be helpful to "zig zag" when counting: eat a lesser amount of calories for 3 days (e.g. 1300) then increase it for one day (e.g. 1500) then go back to the lesser amount. Like I said, these are things I've read about and I'm not sure if they work - I'm only on day 6 of my diet and haven't weighed myself yet. Just thought I'd share

This is exactly what I do! And it has made sticking to my calorie count so much easier because dinner is my most unpredictable meal. Also, sometimes I don't have "breakfast" until 10:30 or 11:00 a.m., and then I either skip or eat a light lunch because I'm not hungry.

To the OP, besides starting your calorie counting w/ dinner, you could also allot a certain amount of calories for each meal--e.g., 600-800 for dinner, 300-400 for breakfast, 300-400 for lunch.

Count me in as another vote for starting your count with the evening meal. I just started doing this myself a couple of weeks ago, so I can't say for sure, but so far it's made it easier for me to control both late evening snacking and afternoon snacking. This is a surprising result and I'm not entirely sure I can explain it. But I think the thought process that is working for me is something like "hm, if I have this [late evening snack], I'll have less calorie space for snacks at work tomorrow, and I hate being uncomfortably hungry at work." And, "hm, I don't have any calorie room left for this [afternoon snack], but it's only a few hours until dinner and then I get to start over with a whole new day's worth of calories." So disciplining myself has (so far) been easier in both cases.

The other option, which is what I do, which is guess is similar to flipping when you start counting calories.. but I keep about 300 calories for breakfast, 3-400 for lunch. That gets me to about 700 calories for the day. That leaves 700 calories for dinner and a snack. (I keep it between 1400-1500) That tends to work quite well for me. Just a thought.
Plus, it does take us a bit to get used to restricting calories. It's not always easy.

Another obvious solution is WHAT you're eating in the evening. Start your evening meal with a salad if you can--filling and low cal. Drink a glass of water before getting to the rest of the meal. Sometimes for me it really is about the satisfaction of eating----lets say pasta---that I want to relish and enjoy. So I make that part of the meal the star, and perhaps eat some veg before hand, or a piece of fruit.

I never eat pizza without first having a salad, which stops me from eating too much pizza. Its easy (for me??) to pretend I've had 3 slices after a salad, when I've really only eaten one because I started off full. I took up the space with veg, then savored the pizza slice - and really enjoyed it - and realistically could have stuffed myself, but then my common sense self starts reminding me that a) I'm full, b) my plan not to over eat pizza worked, and c) most importantly, this isn't the last time I'll ever in my life see pizza.

I find myself more and more adding veg to foods, to stretch the satisfaction.

Maybe when you get home you could snack on some & dip, or fruit salad, soup or whatever your "go to" hunger buster is.

Even some popcorn would fill up the "hungry" space before the main meal.

Any low calorie but filling strategy that keeps you satisfied can get your calories in check. Good luck.

This is genius!