Calorie Counting 101

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  • gdmanley
    gdmanley Posts: 17 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    One thing I would add. Even if you are the type of person who doesn't believe calories in calories out or thinks that you have some condition where the nutritional values of things do not apply to you this actually gives you, in my opinion, even MORE reason to meticulously track and count all of your calories.

    Why? Well because if you accurately count all of your calories while simultaneously accurately tracking your weight and fat loss you have all the readouts you need to see what "a calorie" means to your body. Perhaps you are right and that 75 calories on the box is treated like it is 150 calories by your body...but now you will know for sure because you will be able to relate your weight loss (or maintenance or gain) directly to your caloric intake.

    When you know how many calories you maintain at you can adjust to dial in your weight loss even if your body treats each calorie differently somehow.

  • gdmanley
    gdmanley Posts: 17 Member
    This is true for me as I have diabetes which many deal with and the amount of insulin needed affects calories burned and I also have pancreatic exocrine insufficiency which requires digestive enzymes. These two issues alone affect my basal metabolic rate in extreme ways so I just have to calculate the best I can and then adjust calories to try and allow for more out than in. If I am physically able to do some exercise, then that is lagniappe in the rare weeks that it makes a difference.
  • shercrev
    shercrev Posts: 2 Member
    THIS WAS GREAT!! Very useful information--thanks..

  • aliciamariaq
    aliciamariaq Posts: 272 Member
    bump
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Bumping for visibility with the stickies gone. Long live the stickies!
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Bumping for visibility with the stickies gone. Long live the stickies!
  • sunandmoons
    sunandmoons Posts: 415 Member
    edited October 2015
    Great post!
  • ki4eld
    ki4eld Posts: 1,213 Member
    bump
  • Stop1510
    Stop1510 Posts: 26 Member
    Thank you for this post. I thought after getting a digital scale that logging foods in mfp would be straightforward but it gets kind of murky when logging liquids and condiments. Thanks for clearing that up.
  • nadoz
    nadoz Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you for taking the time to write up on this.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Bumping for visibility.
  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    I worship this post and send every new person I encounter here.
  • Spiyce
    Spiyce Posts: 33 Member
    I bump this! Good article!
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    I worship this post and send every new person I encounter here.

    Excellent plan! Well done.

    I also love dianethegeek's bump gifs.
  • maciekpas
    maciekpas Posts: 5 Member
    I can tell something from my own expirence, I've weighed all foods since few months, Now when I look at some food (meat, vegetables, e.g) I know how much is weighs even how many calaries it is.
  • Jo_G76
    Jo_G76 Posts: 4 Member
    Thanks for the post. As a newbie it is very helpful
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Post a bump and join the chorus
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  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    Time to bump this up to prepare for the incoming newbies
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
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  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
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    Again!
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
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    Bumping for visibility.

    <3
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    bump
  • Joanie456
    Joanie456 Posts: 9 Member
    vismal wrote: »
    Calorie Counting 101

    With the crazy amount of "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing weight" or "My weight loss has stalled" threads that get posted every day I decided to copy a calorie counting sticky I wrote for another forum. This is a guide to help ensure as much accuracy as possible when counting calories. It may seem OCD to some but for beginners I feel the more accurate they can be, the better. Before you post about how you can't count calories because of an ED, this thread isn't for you. If you have psychological issues with counting calories, simply don't. This thread is to help those who want to use calorie counting as a means to lose weight. It is based on the fact that if you eat less calories then you burn in a day you will lose weight. If you do not believe in this fact then please just don't post here. This thread is also not about how much you should eat and what you should eat. It is simply about how to accurately track what you do eat. Please keep the reply's to things that deal with calorie counting. If you want to talk about any of the aforementioned things, start a new thread.

    Logging foods: In the old days, to calorie count, we had to use paper and pencil. This is why programs like weight watchers became so popular. It essentially dumbed down calorie counting to a point system and made things easier to track. With the advent of software like Myfitnesspal, there is no need for the dumbing down. You can track calories, macro nutrients, micro nutrients, and exercise with very little hassle.

    To correctly implement calorie counting you must log everything you consume in a day that contains calories. This includes liquids and/or supplements that contain calories. Some people also log calorie free foods (gum, diet soda, black coffee, etc). Since they do not contain any calories, this is optional. They may however contain something that you want to track (vitamins, minerals, sodium).

    Weighing foods: You must weigh your foods! Do not estimate! Weigh everything on a kitchen scale. Preferably a digital scale that weighs in grams. Only liquids should be measured by volume (cups tablespoons, etc). On a package of oatmeal the label will usually say that a serving size is ½ cup. It will also have 40g in parentheses. Use a scale to weigh out 40 grams. You will find that if you dump oats into a ½ cup measuring cup that it won’t always equal 40 grams. This becomes more important with calorically dense food such as peanut butter. 1 tablespoon is usually 100 calories, however one can easily put 2-3 “tablespoons” worth of peanut butter on the end of a normal kitchen spoon. Instead weigh the peanut butter according to how many grams are in a serving. The same goes for scoopers found in supplements. One scoop of whey does not always equal 1 serving. Always weigh your whey! Here are some links to a couple of kitchen scales for purchase:
    http://www.amazon.com/EatSmart-Precision-Digital-Kitchen-Silver/dp/B001N07KUE/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1391480839&sr=8-5&keywords=eatsmart+scale
    http://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Digital-Multifunction-Kitchen-Elegant/dp/B004164SRA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391480816&sr=8-1&keywords=food+scale

    [b[Handling foods with no nutritional information[/b]: Sometimes fruits, vegetables, and meats do not come with nutritional information. The USDA has a comprehensive list of nearly all fruits, vegetables, and many different cuts of meats in grams.

    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list

    Using myfitnesspal you can simply search the fruit, vegetable, or meat with “usda” afterwards to obtain the same nutritional information. When weighing meat, ALWAYS WEIGH IT RAW. The nutritional facts are based on the raw weight of meat unless packaging specifically states otherwise. This is true for just about any food you cook. If you are simply searching the database for a food with no nutritional information, be wise at what you pick. Don't pick the one option that is significantly lower in calories then all the others simply because it is. You must also be careful with the bar code scanner. Sometimes the scanner will not give you the correct product. Verify this whenever possible.

    Dining out: When dining out, attempt to find nutritional information on the restaurant you are at. Many larger chains have all that information available. Know that this is somewhat of an estimate as they are not weighing things to the gram in the kitchen. They also might be liberal with ingredients like butter and oil which can add up quickly. If the restaurant does not provide nutritional information for their meals, attempt to deconstruct your meal and track it piece by piece. If you want to be 100% accurate you can bring a scale to a restaurant. This not something I do as I don't often eat out, but depending on how accurate you wish to be, it is an option. It's worth considering if you eat out frequently.

    Accuracy: Accept the fact that you will never be 100% accurate. The FDA allows for up to a 20% margin of error with nutritional information. You must simply do the best you can possibly do to not let that margin grow any larger by estimating what you have eaten. Along these lines you will find products that claim to be zero calories like mustard, cooking spray, and many others. They actually have somewhere between 0-5 calories per serving. Because of rounding they can claim zero on the label. If you want to be precise, count them as 5 calories a serving. This is increasingly important if you consume these products frequently.

    Once you have a solid idea of what your daily/weekly consumption is like, it is easy to manipulate calories to fulfill whatever your goals may be. Before you decide that you need to increase or decrease calories to help accomplish goals, ask yourself “Am I tracking everything correctly?” Are you drinking something with calories and not counting it? Are you weighing everything to the gram? Are you having cheat days/meals that you are not tracking? If you answer yes to any of these then your caloric goals may be correct, you are simply not meeting them. Know that if you eat 1500 calories a day and have a once a week cheat day of 3000 calories you are effectively eating 1714 calories a day. This is why you need to track your cheat days. It's okay to have them but if you track them, you can prevent them from skewing your results.

    Tips:Here are some tips that I personally like to use in my own tracking of calories:

    When weighing condiments I zero the scale with the container sitting on the scale. I apply the condiments to my food. I then put the container back on the scale. It will read a negative number in grams. That is how much condiment I used. This does not work for aerosols like pam or whip cream.

    If my goal is weight loss and am going out to eat at a restaurant with no nutritional information, I reconstruct the meal in myfitnesspal and add 10% to the caloric total. This is in case I underestimated. Research shows humans are notorious at underestimating what they eat. In the rare case I overestimated the calories contained in the meal, I can enjoy a small extra deficit for the day. Even if they do provide nutritional information, this might be worth doing. Again, the chef is going to exercise portion control but he isn't weight his butter or your steak on a food scale and tracking to the gram.

    Myfitnesspal lets you enter in your own foods. If something is not in their database you can add it. I get my burritos from Chipotle the same way every time. They have all their nutritional information listed on their website. After I determine the values of my burrito I create the food in MFP and don’t have to bother with it next time. The same goes for Subway.

    If you want to weigh liquids, this site will help you based on what liquid you are weighing http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking/

    Final thoughts: Counting calories is in my opinion the best thing one can do to help lose weight. This guide was written to help you be as close to 100% accurate as possible. Some of you might not like the idea of bringing a food scale to a restaurant or weighing condiments. These things aren't musts. If you don’t want to do them then you must accept that you will be less accurate than if you had. If you are a bodybuilder preparing for a competition then you will want to be as accurate as humanly possible. If you are just trying to lose weight with no real deadlines and don’t mind if your diet takes a few weeks longer than planned, feel free to be a little less strict. If you find you are not losing weight despite the fact that your caloric intake is low enough that you should be, then you need to start considering doing things like weighing condiments. Only then can you be truly sure it is time to lower calories. I hope this guide helps you guys. Feel free to add your own tips and ask questions! Again, don't turn this into a debate about anything, that isn't the intention of this thread. Make sure your reply's are about calorie counting!

  • Joanie456
    Joanie456 Posts: 9 Member
    Very helpful tips--I didn't know that you shouldn't measure food in measuring cups I will be using my scale more often
  • Joanie456
    Joanie456 Posts: 9 Member
    Right now I don't weigh things (just haven't gotten around to buying the scale yet) However I still have quite a bit to lose and I am losing pretty steadily so far so good. Am I right to assume the closer I get to my goal, I'll have to be more exact?

  • Joanie456
    Joanie456 Posts: 9 Member
    Ihave quite a bit to lose, too and I am finding that starting good habits early help tremendously late down the road
  • FabianRodriguez94
    FabianRodriguez94 Posts: 221 Member
    I've had success with measuring liquid in grams (only with milk in cereal), but would like to know why I should be measuring it differently. Thoughts on this?
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
    I've had success with measuring liquid in grams (only with milk in cereal), but would like to know why I should be measuring it differently. Thoughts on this?
    Measuring liquids in grams is going to cause far less problems then measuring solid foods in cups/spoon. The issue is that not all liquids weigh the same at the same volume. Because most liquids give nutritional information in the form of volume (cups or ml) you'd have to make a conversion to grams. This requires finding out how much the particular liquid weighs per ml or per cup because not all liquids weigh the same. What most people do is just convert ml to grams on a 1:1 ratio. While this is technically inaccurate, it makes such a little difference with most liquids that it is fine to do. I often weigh my milk by pouring it onto my cereal rather than dirting another measuring cup to measure it.

    Using milk as an example, a milliliter of milk weighs roughly 1.03 grams. Very close to 1:1. Measuring this way would give you no trouble at all. Honey on the other hand is farther from a 1:1 ratio. A milliliter of honey weighs 1.44 grams. This could result in significant inaccuracies if you didn't account for the conversion.
  • FabianRodriguez94
    FabianRodriguez94 Posts: 221 Member
    vismal wrote: »
    I've had success with measuring liquid in grams (only with milk in cereal), but would like to know why I should be measuring it differently. Thoughts on this?
    Measuring liquids in grams is going to cause far less problems then measuring solid foods in cups/spoon. The issue is that not all liquids weigh the same at the same volume. Because most liquids give nutritional information in the form of volume (cups or ml) you'd have to make a conversion to grams. This requires finding out how much the particular liquid weighs per ml or per cup because not all liquids weigh the same. What most people do is just convert ml to grams on a 1:1 ratio. While this is technically inaccurate, it makes such a little difference with most liquids that it is fine to do. I often weigh my milk by pouring it onto my cereal rather than dirting another measuring cup to measure it.

    Using milk as an example, a milliliter of milk weighs roughly 1.03 grams. Very close to 1:1. Measuring this way would give you no trouble at all. Honey on the other hand is farther from a 1:1 ratio. A milliliter of honey weighs 1.44 grams. This could result in significant inaccuracies if you didn't account for the conversion.

    Ok, I see what you mean. What I have been doing is put the spoon and bowl and tare the scale, then enter the cereal and measure it in grams, then I tare again. Then I put the milk in and keep the measurement in grams just because, like you said, I don't want to have to wash another measuring cup. The MFP entry has the milk in ounces, but also offers it with 227 grams, which is one serving. I pour about 350-400 grams in my cereal, but will usually just log it as 400 grams by using the 227 grams measurement that's available, then counting it as 1 3/4 of a serving.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Bump.