Manually counting calories

cherapple

Does anyone count calories manually? MFP is so easy, and I love it, but I feel like it's so convenient that I never really get a true idea of the amount of calories in my foods. MFP does all the work, and I don't have to know a thing! :laugh:

Of course, I have a general idea of how to make 300 calorie meals now (I eat 5x a day), but I'd like to be able to look at a food and automatically know about how many calories it has. Over time, I hear from people who have done it that it becomes automatic. That would be the ultimate in knowledge, to be a walking nutrition encyclopedia! :laugh:

When I did Weight Watchers, it got to be very automatic to count points, but calories involve more precision and more math. I would just need to do it for a little while, but I'm dragging my feet about it. :grumble:

cherapple

Does anyone count calories manually? MFP is so easy, and I love it, but I feel like it's so convenient that I never really get a true idea of the amount of calories in my foods. MFP does all the work, and I don't have to know a thing! :laugh:

Of course, I have a general idea of how to make 300 calorie meals now (I eat 5x a day), but I'd like to be able to look at a food and automatically know about how many calories it has. Over time, I hear from people who have done it that it becomes automatic. That would be the ultimate in knowledge, to be a walking nutrition encyclopedia! :laugh:

When I did Weight Watchers, it got to be very automatic to count points, but calories involve more precision and more math. I would just need to do it for a little while, but I'm dragging my feet about it. :grumble:

arewethereyet

I did that once before, years ago. Had my little book and wrote down every calorie. Got to be I could look at a plate and know how many cals in the dish.

I also obsessed about food. So I find it a relief that someone else does the counting.

Now that I am eating cleaner, I find even when I try to go over, my cals are within 100 of my goal,

Wolfena

When I was actively losing weight, I used a program like MFP to count my calories for about 7 months straight. Eventually, I started to memorize what most foods had in them, or if I had the container in front of me I could see it.

After that, I started to mentally tally them as the day would go on. I'd still use the program once every few weeks for a day or two to double check that I was still doing OK, and not over or underestimating things. I was doing this while in maintenance mode.

Now that I am again actively trying to lose a few pounds I am tracking on MFP. My calorie limit is only about 1300 and I find that I cheat less if I am recording it. I don't intend to log my meals forever and once I get to where I want to be again I'll go back to mentally tallying.

hamilton_mom

I was counting manually....I had a notebook and everything, with my favorite foods nutritional information and everything. However for the calorie counting I love MFP better. I do still go to the manual way for other information like the vitamins I'm getting in and other stuff like that. I think if it's going to be a life change it has to be a little bit of both...and a little bit of lots of other stuff, too.

...and I for one I'm not ALWAYS at a computer...so I have to write my stuff down during the day sometimes and then plug it in here for the reports and a more visual opportunity to see my success.

I am starting to learn which foods have what and how many calories in them...i.e. I know when what I ate isn't what MFP put in...so then I research or even add it.

MattySparky

I do it sometimes just to train myself for that day Im out at a friends house and maybe not have internet access just so I can enter them eventually. Im usually really close when it comes to veggies and fruits as long as I know approx how much weight was in the portion. I dont eat packaged meals very often at all and I think it's things like that that are much harder to judge, the same with resaurant food. Often they are prepared in such a manner that their process can pack on calories with different marinades and brazing sauces etc.

songbyrdsweet

I did it for a while before I found Fitday or MFP. I kept it all in my head for the most part because I never had paper handy. It was sort of a chore though, lots of mental math and lots of time. I am really super good at eyeballing portions now!