Counting Calories Accurately - Tips & Methods

msmaeghan

Should I record the stick of gum that I chewed? Or perhaps the fly that I swallowed when I was running? Seriously, there's a point where I call overkill, and we passed that a couple miles back. Recording minute calories is a pain, and I don't think it's necessary to a healthy lifestyle change. I do think we should measure out portions of meat, cheese, nut butter, oil, anything that is calorie denser that we can't really guesstimate. But by these standards, I've probably only been 75% accurate with my calorie counting, and I've lost a steady 1 pound a week for almost ten weeks.
It's just not necessary to monitor your food like that, as long as you're mostly accurate and being honest about the foods you are putting into your body. Once I reach my goal weight, I'm not going to track my food as closely as I do right now, it's not realistic, and if I were to be as nit picky as the article writer, I'd probably lose motivation.

aag3981

This has some valuable tips on it. As far as the haters up here, sure this is pretty nit picky, but for some people, they may find they need to be this specific to get results. I'm not overweight, eat pretty healthy most of the time and workout daily. Even during times I am religiously documenting my intake, I don't lose fat as I would like. It's something I'm doing and being this specific, even if for a little while, will likely help me sort it out. When I search for chicken breast on this site, the same serving size for supposedly the same food can be off by about 200 calories. It seems like something like chicken breast wouldn't change a whole lot and obviously something in wrong. I eat a lot of chicken. Should I over estimate and possibly have low energy during my workouts or under estimate and not make my fitness goals. Or rather than second guessing, I can take a really close look at what I do and measure that precisely so in the future I can use a measurement personalized to me. It's fine that you either 1) don't need to use these "drastic" methods or 2) find it too consumming, but talking smack about a post that offers good advice just because it's not advice you find useful, is silly and immature.

Lnature71

Thanks for this tread! I have had trouble lately with getting to the gym.
My commitment today is going to the gym!