If you don't have time to calorie count, and you can't afford the time/money for a structured "points" plan like WW, you can go to another older idea (very similar to points) of "exchanges." Most diets used to use them a lot -- basically tell you how many servings of what kind of food to eat. Nowadays, most of the exchange info is about one form of diabetic diet. But this list of exchanges works for any diet.

Just sit down one weekend or evening and figure out how many calories you want to eat each day, then break that down into meals and snacks. Then with the calorie allowance for each meal/snack, determine which exchanges you want for that meal. (an example: lunch might be two veg exchanges (50 calories), two lean protein exchanges (110), one fat (45), two starches (160), and a fruit (60)... for a total of 425 calories.) Once you have your plan organized, you can very easily plan your meals to your own exchanges.

The great thing about exchanges (like calories) is that you can customize it however you want. You can work out a low-carb exchange plan, or a low-fat exchange plan or a gluten-free exchange plan, etc.

The easiest way to ease into it is to find ONE recipe that sounds good and freezes well, and try it this weekend. If you like it, it becomes part of your cooking repertoire, and you have a couple of containers of yummy food already measured out and ready in your freezer. Next weekend try another recipe.

Eventually, you'll have a bunch of favorite recipes that work very well for you, and you'll be a more confident cook.

Another thing to consider is to have "components" on hand for easy cooking/lunches. For instance, I might roast a chicken on Sunday and we eat half of it for dinner. The rest becomes chicken salad for a couple of my lunches during the week. The bones become broth for soup for my lunches (I can usually drink something even when I don't have time to "eat lunch").

For this sort of thing, I highly recommend the "Monday to Friday Cookbook", which is where I learned to plan weekend cooking that can meld into weekday meals.

Although I like calorie counting, all of my weight loss came from being calorie-aware but not calorie counting. There have been times where I've counted once every few weeks but I've never counted calories or carbs or points on a daily basis. Could also be why I struggle to get below 200 pounds though I've lost 150ish pounds without it though by cutting out junk, exercising, being aware of calories I eat even if I don't count them, etc.

When I just started out I did not count calories...I cut down my portion sizes. My typical meal plan would end up being:

Breakfast - Boiled egg sandwich
Snack - a piece of fruit
Lunch - 1 piece of chicken with 1 cup of rice and a salad
Snack - a piece of fruit or a granola bar
Dinner - 1 piece of chicken with 1 cup of rice and a salad
Snack - a no sugar added ice cream bar

This was wayyy less than what I was eating before and as such I lost weight. I lost 30lbs in 6months doing this. It was not until I plateaued that I started counting calories.

Try this method and see.....

I dont really count calories, i mean like Nellie said I stay aware of what Im eating.
I just dont have the motivation to count calories, I mean I'll start then i forget so many days and then just say forget this! lol.
I mean i feel if if has a lot of calories and it looks like its going to be bad for you then it is going to be bad for you and not to eat it!

Sparkpeople.com is very easy to use- I'm honestly surprised you are saying it's taking you over half an hour and you are manually entering everything. Specially if you say you eat the same thing daily- there is a "copy this meal to another day" button above each meal (breakfast lunch dinner) on the right side. You click that and select the day and meal you want to copy it to and voila- 3 seconds and you wrote up another meal for another day.

Then when you enter a food or find one that matches you can click "add this food to my favorites" and then next time on the add a food button you click the "favorites" tab and scroll down and select your item- just make sure you remember what you called it.

And then it also sounds like you aren't properly utilizing the add foods search well. Change the options in the add foods search from ANY of these words to ALL of these words, you can also change the bottom options on the add foods from "none" to "foods shared by other members" if you are looking for something in particular.

I rarely actually type anything in anymore and also if you know exactly what you are eating the next day you can put all your food in the day before and only go back IF you need to add or remove something you did or did not end up eating.

I know you said you have a lot to take care of but weight loss is about taking care of your health also. I agree you need to say something about the bathroom breaks- infection after infection is NOT good for you. And I don't think it's unreasonable to say hey can someone come over 2x a day, just for 5 minutes so I can go to the bathroom.

And if they threaten to fire you let them know it's illegal for you to not be allowed to take a bathroom break during your shift. Private school or not there are still federal employment laws. I could NOT handle not being allowed a bathroom break during my shift.

I haven't read all the replies, so maybe this has been mentioned. What do you think about just writing down the foods you eat? Research has shown that those who write down what they eat are more successful at losing weight. It keeps you more mindful of what you are eating, and just not wanting to right down "SNACK: One 16 oz bag of Doritos, 12 Oreos" is a big deterrent to over eating. Consider that baby step first, just commiting to writing down what you eat no matter how "bad" or "good" it is, not necessarily tracking calories for now.

nope- you don't have to count calories. i lost weight and i've kept it off by focusing on eating lots of vegetables and cutting out junk and refined carbs. i didn't follow any specific diet, but i made good choices every day, cooked/ prepared almost all of my own food, and just kept chugging along at it. i don't do any formal exercise, but i walk dogs and i bike and walk everywhere (i live in the city and i don't have a car). i'm not super restrictive with my diet- i'm sure i would rebel. i already ate mostly healthy foods, just too much of them, especially pasta. i can eat giant salads and bowls of soups that are mostly vegetables, with moderate portions of protein and healthy fats in there. i never felt uncomfortably hungry.

this plan worked for ME. if i tried it for a while and it didn't work, i would have probably turned to calorie counting, since that seems to have been so effective for many people here.

I hate counting calories... seems I'm always to busy to stop and write down what I've eaten. (Could it be because I'm always eating?) I know how to lose weight, just not how to keep it off. Since I've always hated counting calories and therefore never have, maybe that's the ticket? I'll try Sparkpeople - that sounds like a good way to keep track.

I've spent my entire life bouncing up and down the scale. Now, at 54, I'm determined to drop this extra weight and make eating right a lifestyle.

No. There are many plans.

However, I have never met a formerly overweight person who didn't decide to make themselves a priority in their life above others. That doesn't mean becoming selfish and disregarding responsibilities.

No old person looks back on life and says, "I'm glad I made work more of a priority than my health". NONE.

Rather than thinking of "calorie counting and exercise" as a priority, think of avoiding obesity, physical ailments, and premature death as a priority.

I've had three separate jobs over the last 3 years which didn't allow me either a bathroom break, or a lunch break over my 8 hour shift. My state has practically no labor laws it seems. I hated them with ever fibre of my being, understandably - but money is money.

Yes, I think this is key.

To the OP, I have a demanding, challenging job too. So do lots and lots of other people on this board. Others have ailing parents, spouses, or children to care for, debilitating medical conditions of their own, lots of other challenges that make it easier to stay fat than to lose weight.

But the thing about weight loss is, you have to be willing to make changes if you want to see a different result. If you say "no," and "I can't," and "I don't have time," to every potential change, then your eating and exercise habits will stay the same, and your weight will not go down. It's really that simple.

For me - speaking only for myself - the effort I put into weight loss is second only to my job, and only second by a very slim margin. I work about 50 hours a week, more when I'm close to deadline. But I also go to the gym at least 4 times a week, and I spend a lot of weekend time planning meals & snacks, shopping, and cooking, so that when I get home after a long day of work & my trip to the gym, I have a great on-plan meal already mostly prepared.

All of that takes a considerable investment of time and effort - weight loss and getting fit is like a part-time job or a very immersive hobby - and it takes precedence over many other things I'd like to spend time doing. I had to do that - I had to place it that high in my life and give it that much attention if I wanted to get the weight off. It sucks - but then, being fat sucks too. I'm ready to be done being fat - but to get there I have to take on the hard work of really changing the way I live my life.

Firefly, I understand not wanting to count calories. But consider my story.

I live in Japan. I'm a teacher (8am-4:15pm) with a lot of other activities on my plate. And almost none of the foods I eat are part of any online or printed database that I've found (Livestrong, Fitday, Sparkpeople, WeightWatchers). I'm also a teacher. In fact, I was a WW member before moving to Japan and was religious about calculating my points. But I got here, thought it was too much effort and stopped. BS excuse and, of course, I wasn't really getting any weight loss results.

Since joining 3FC this month I've regained the motivation to count calories. I'm not going to lie, it can be a pain. I receive school lunch every day; I have no idea what's in it but I do my best to search for the foods in Japanese, estimate the ingredients and portions and enter them into a database (FitBit) myself. My other meals are usually made at home and I enter each ingredient individually.

All this being said, I don't spend more than 15 minutes each day logging my foods.

You can find a way to count calories, whatever your situation. It won't take that much time, it won't be that difficult and you'll feel better for it.

Maybe you could take one Sunday afternoon and make a meal plan for the entire month. -- Maybe rotate the same meals for each week.

That way you would not have to count calories each day. Also having a set "menu" saves time "What to make for dinner?" or aimlessly wondering about grocery store; what to buy... And it would end up saving you money as well, because you would not buy un needed items.

I count calories, but yes I understand that it is kind of a drag