What's a reliable way to count calories?

I’m not sure if there is a way to reliably standardize the process short of weighing your food (10 oz chicken) or measuring it’s volume (½ cup of broccoli tips). Even then, it won’t be 100%. If you don’t want to do that, you just have to eyeball it and hope for the best, I think. It probably gets easier to do the estimates the more you do it.

If you are worried about caloric intake I really think you should consult with your doctor. Restricting your caloric intake is a health related endeavor that has health benefits and also health consequences if not approached sensibly with what is best for you.

The pasta and bananas are lots of calories in a small package. You want foods with few calories in a big (bulky) package, like veggies.

Get a Salter digital kitchen scale from Bed Bath and Beyond. They are around $25 and you can zero out the plate and get very exact weight measurements of your food. Also, go to the bookstore and buy one of those books that tells you how many calories are in everything. I have a little one, I can actually fit it in my purse, but it does not give the weight of somethings, I wish I had bought one that was a little more specific. I have a bigger book at home that does have specifics though.

Also, how it works is a certain amount of calorie intake per day equals a certain weight. Well, you have to minus out exercise. I need to get the mathematical equation for you to estimate BMI. This is why when people diet they lose weight, and then when they go back to eating ho hey used to they go right back to their old weight.

If I were you I would figure out how many calories you eat, and if you want to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, cut back 500 calories per day and exercise a little more.

Thanks everyone!

@josie – So is that too many calories for one day? How many should I be getting?

@JLeslie – I feel like cutting back 500 calories a day would be a lot… right now, my average daily intake is: one granola bar (100 calories), yogurt and fruit for lunch (I’m guessing 300 calories?), and dinner is maybe 500–700 calories in different forms. After dinner I sometimes snack on fruit or Nilla wafers while studying, but not excessively.

Depending on variables, you need 1500 to 2000 calories just to stay alive. If you are eating (as you say) about 1000, you should be dropping weight. If you are not, you need to stoke the metabolic fires by vigorous aerobic exercise.

@josie – I dropped weight for awhile, but seem to have plateaued. I can live with my current weight, but I’m terrified of gaining more, and whenever I deviate from the granola-yogurt-etc diet mentioned above (as I did today with the pancakes and pasta), I feel like I can’t tell whether I’ve gone 500, 800 or 1000 calories over my standard diet.

Just go with your body, but do not starve. Eat when you feel hungry, lots of fresh foods and plenty of protein. It seems you are coming up short on the proteins depending.

Do not drop below 1500 calories a day, unless on rare occasion. Anything less is going to be hard to meet your bodies nutritional requirements.

Eat nuts and cottage cheese for extra protein, and make sure you take a good vitamin with calcium. A woman is never too young to build good bones!

Have you checked the US Dept of Agriculture site Mypyramid.gov ? It has a wealth of info and will let you know how many calories you need based upon your size, weight, activity level, etc.
Our tax dollars paid for it so you might as well use it.

Thanks, guys!

@xxii, sometimes it’s less important to minimize calories than it is to get the right kinds of food in you. You can eat a boatload of veggies and lean meat for the calories in pancakes and pasta. Carbs are quick energy, and unless you’ve got a high level of daily activity, if you’re eating mostly carbs, you can reduce your calorie intake and still gain weight.

Stay away from processed foods and diet soft drinks.

@xxii

Okay…now, have a milkshake! lol

A 21 year old should be able to use a small calorie counter with success (in my opinion)

You just have to figure out how to keep up with calories. If you cook everything you eat it’s easier. But, some restaurants offer nutrition info too.

@xxii The food you described is what you usually eat, or what you are eating now while dieting? What weight do you want to get to, and I can tell you more or less how many calories you need to acheive it. It’s not perfect, because how fast you metabolize food depends on a ew different things, but it will give you a good estimate. How much do you weigh now?

You’re 5’1”, so if I were to guess ou want to be around 105 or 110 pounds? But, maybe you are shooting for 120? You need to come up with your goal, you can always change your goal later. If you under eat too much, you will feel very hungry, unsatisfied, and it can be bad for your health, even dangerous. Literally calorie counting will help you lose weight, you have to write it all down, no guessing, or thinking I ate all healthy food. Many people who are very overweight when they diet think they eat well, when they don’t. But, since I don’t know how much you weigh, unless I missed where you wrote it, maybe you just want to lose 5 pounds, and you are basically thin; well, that is a different story.

So here is the math. If you want to weigh 110 and do minimal activity

Convert weight into Kilos 110/2.2=50
50X24=1200
low to moderate activity.3—.4, moderate activity .4—.5, very active .5+
1200X.4=480

1200+480=1680 and then multiply another .10, which is 168

1680 + 168 = 1848

So, 1848 calories to maintain 110 pounds with low to moderate activity.

If I were you, I would not go below 1500 calories daily. See how that goes, start getting a real handle on where 1500 gets you, how much weight you lose. I you actually work out a minimum of half an hour a day, and also are up and around on your feet in general, you may need a little more. As I stated, you probably need more like 1700–1800 to maintain this weight, but you may want slighty faster weight loss, so starting off a little lower, and then adjusting as you go might give you more satisifaction with your weight loss.

Best to eat at least 4 meals a day, can be 3 and a snack. So each meal will be 300–500 calories, snack 100–200, track the calories and plan your meals.

Also, it is impossible for us to know how many calories you describe in your original question, because it matters how much pasta you ate, how big the pancakes were, etc. I assume you are eating more calories than you think. The calories you describe in your response to me is very low if it is accurate, too low.

How many pounds do you expect to lose in a week?

So I looked up your meal. Pesto sauce has about 1200 calories a cup.

About 220 calories in a cup of cooked pasta.

One frozen pancake is around 90 calories, and frozen are not very big, that is without added butter and syrup.

If the veggies were sauteed or roasted with oil, I think oil is around 120 per tablespoon. By the way if you cooked your pancakes from scratch, you need to add up the calories of the sugar, milk, eggs and oil to make them and you get your number for your pancakes. If a box look for cals in the dry mix and add how much oil you cooked with etc.

Tofu a half a cup is around 80 cals I think, but if it was fried or sauteed you have to add those calories.

How many cals do you think you actually ate in your original question after adding things up?

@perspicacious – Thanks, but I don’t think you’re being that helpful. I would be able to use a calorie counter if I knew which one to use. I’m in college on a meal plan, so I don’t cook my own meals yet, and my college eateries don’t provide nutrition info on the food they serve.

@JLeslie – Wow, thanks for that comprehensive answer! I guess yesterday’s pasta meal alone had about 900 calories. Scary… The food I described in this answer is what I normally eat; the pasta and pancakes were what I ate yesterday when I was being undisciplined.

I don’t expect myself to lose very much weight. I’m 105 lbs now, but I would like to lose about 5 pounds by Christmas. My main problem is not having a standardised source to base my calorie count on, which means I never know when I’ve overeaten or not.

Edit: For example, I just tried to calculate the calories in my breakfast – one slice of wheat bread with peanut butter. Various sites have the calories in one slice of wheat bread as 24, 55, 69 and 128!

@xxii You are a great weight. You should focus on eating healthy and exercising, I feel confident you only eat when you are hungry if you are only 105 pounds. You should not do anything extreme, you will screw up your natural ability to stop eating when you are full. Eat more veggies and whole foods, and a little less maple syrup and fatty foods.

About the bread, if it doesn’t say on the packaging how many calories it is, then you need a site or book that states how many grams or ounces equals how many calories and weigh the bread. That is why you need the Salter scale if you want to count calories. It will help with weighing meat and when you only eat a portion of a packaged product.

I just noticed you are in college. Are you sure your school does not have calorie counts on a website? Also, if the bread is sandwich bread, one of the kitchen people might be able to tell you the calories. Don’t ask them during the lunch rush, but during an off hour maybe they will help you get some information on the nutritional content of the food.

@JLeslie – What do you mean by “whole foods”? And thanks – I’ll look into checking up on the college’s calorie counts! I know they have them at some places, but not all of them.

Whole foods, meaning foods that are in their natural state like veggies and fruits, and whole grains like brown rice and oats. How it grows out of the ground. And, foods made from scratch that don’t have added chemicals and preservatives I think are fine too. My university had a pretty good selection in the cafeterias, although many dishes are made with much more fat when prepared for large numbers of people, then how you would cook at home, so it is hidden fat, you don’t even realize how much fat is in it.

Also, dairy has a lot of calories. If you eat a lot of cheese, if you just eliminated it for two weeks you would probably lose a few pounds. And if you use whole milk, switch to 1 or 2%

@xxii Look for one at the checkout at the supermarket. It’s a small paperback that will fit into a pocket. You can certainly learn to use it while eating in your school’s refectory.