12-31-2013 22:07
12-31-2013 22:07
I'm having a really hard time counting calories. It's not keeping the calorie count low when i eat, it's only the actual counting. I just think it's too much work to measure the exact amount of cereal and milk i put into the bowl. Any tips? Or do i just have to suck it up and measure everything?
Also, what about eating out? If i'm going to Red Lobster or Outback, how do i know how many calories I'm eating?
01-01-2014 04:54
01-01-2014 04:54
How do you know you're keeping the calorie count low if you're not measuring? Weighing, measuring, counting and recording are techniques which have been shown to increase success in losing/maintaining weight. Cereals are a good case in point: the measure on the box is 30gm. If you weigh that amount into a bowl I'm sure you'll be amazed! When I did it, I realised that I'd been eating two to three times that much. Try cutting up some cheese into,say, 30gm portions by guestimate to see how difficult it is to be accurate when you're guessing. Or get other people to do it and see how much people's ideas vary.
What I've done whenever possible is to build a small collection of containers so that I know,for instance, that that one filled to the top is my cereal ration, that one is the right amount of milk.
Before you go to a restaurant you could try looking on line and choosing from their menu before you get there. Most of them have calorie counts on their websites. Good luck!
01-01-2014 14:09
01-01-2014 14:09
get a digital scale that you can zero out. Put your bowl on the scale, zero out, pour in cereal to appropriate ounce size portion, zero out, pour in milk to ounces you want. Easy. No harder than putting your bowl on the counter really.
01-01-2014 18:29
01-01-2014 18:29
it seems hard at first, but after a while it becomes the norm and so worth it when you see the weight dropping off.
When I first started I was surprised by what a correct serving size of some things were but it has helped me with my portion control. I also have learnt to look more closely at lables on foods, what I thought was a single serve tub really turned out to be 2 serves, so I had been eating 2 serves when I thought it was only 1
01-01-2014 20:53
01-01-2014 20:53
I had a similar issue -- counting carbs.
The only thing that worked for me was to look it all up once, and put together a spreadsheet that I was able to print off. I had one at home on the fridge, and one at work with me. After a while of reading the list, I ended up memorizing most of it
I used the most common measurements for servings. ...
Example:
Vegetables: 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw
veggie #1 / x cals
veggie #2 / x cals
Meat, per ounce
meat#1 / x cals
meat#2 / x cals
Condiments:
salsa
butter
etc
etc
01-11-2014 16:40
01-11-2014 16:40
This is exactly why I joined My Fitness Pal. It's an easy app you can download on your phone and the database is so unbelievably expansive! Simply search for the keywords in your meal and include the restaurant in the search name and 9 times out of ten you'll get pretty accurate results that you can simply plug in and add to your food journal for the day. The best part about MFP? ... It syncs with your fitbit!!
01-12-2014 04:15
01-12-2014 04:15
Good advice, MFP IS awesome, I belong to it too. ladeejoi will still have to measure and log her foods though. I got the impression she (I'm assuming it's she) is hoping she can just keep some sort of mental running total without having to do any working out. This might work initially I suppose if there's a huge amount of weight to lose.
01-13-2014 00:22
01-13-2014 00:22
For scoopable stuff: go to the dollar store or something and grab 3-4 sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons. That way you always have one for quick doling-out of food even if 1 or 2 are dirty. Almost all my breakfast foods are done by scoop or spoon: half & half + sugar for my coffee, steel cut oats and brown sugar, greek yogurt, cereal and milk, etc.
For all the rest, get a digital kitchen scale. (It's a great kitchen purchase anyhow -- great for baking!) Whenever you're adding ingredients to a dish, just have a staging bowl zeroed out on the scale to measure before chucking them into the mix.
It also helps to pre-portion your foods into servings. A lot of the time you don't even need a scale/measuring device. You just halve the total amount until you get one portion. I do this with my breakfast sausage (which has 8 servings); after I buy the log, I cut it in half, I cut the halves in half, then I cut the half halves in half. Boom - 8 single servings, with all the precise data on the package. Then I stack the balls or patties of raw meat into a single sealable tupperware container.
Butter is similarly easy, if you keep it in the wax paper wrapper (which has 1-tablespoon tickmarks on it). Just use a really sharp knife to cut paper and all each time you need it.
As for eating out: unless you go to a place that has the caloric values online, you're kinda out of luck. I usually just search the database for something equivalent, guestimate how many servings I had, and throw an extra .5 - 1 serving on for good measure (because god knows how the food business loves to serve extra large portions sodden with buckets of fat and sugar!) You're probably going to miss the mark, but hey...6 out of 7 days a week isn't bad for pinpoint tracking. It's better than not tracking at all.
01-13-2014 07:15
01-13-2014 07:15
If you have a restaurant supply store, you can find good quality serving tools that come in measurable sizes. Scoops from one tablespoon to a full cup and drain spoons in 1/4 cup increments. I have a half cup scoop and a 1/2 cup drain spoon.
01-21-2014 17:52
01-21-2014 17:52
01-22-2014 07:45
01-22-2014 07:45
Yes, you will have to measure, only if you want accuracy. Above solutions are great for measuring. You could also get a plastic bowl at the dollar store--measure once and mark the correct serving on the outside of the bowl.
Fitbit has a great list of restaurant foods under "explore" I would check there first and if you know what you like to order, input it once and save as a favorite--simple to add again.
Thanks Fitbit for keeping this easy!
01-22-2014 13:53
01-22-2014 13:53
Hi there, I have been wanting to try this my fittness pal. glad to see someone likes it.
any suggestion on it?
01-22-2014 14:11
01-22-2014 14:11
ok so i downloaded my fitness pal with my fitbit flex. but the mfp doesn't seem to sync my movements just my cals.
is that how it works?
01-22-2014 16:17
01-22-2014 16:17
When I go out I'd rather focus on enjoying the experience than calories. I don't count calories, but try to make the obviously lower calorie choices -- salad instead of French fries or blooming onion, vegetable broth instead of clam chowder, etc.
01-22-2014 16:19 - edited 01-22-2014 16:22
01-22-2014 16:19 - edited 01-22-2014 16:22
If you are finding it annoying weighing food, how about buying a bunch of small containers or bags. Instead of weighing out portions of cereal ever day you weigh 7 or even 14 portions into its own little container. That way you use the scales once and get measured portions for one or two weeks.
01-22-2014 20:10 - edited 01-22-2014 20:12
01-22-2014 20:10 - edited 01-22-2014 20:12
01-22-2014 22:38
01-22-2014 22:38
01-25-2014 10:56 - edited 01-25-2014 10:58
01-25-2014 10:56 - edited 01-25-2014 10:58
I'm not sure how you have it set up, but MFP does see the calories from Fitbit.
If you look in your diary, you will a negative number showing the amount of calories you've burned higher than the amount that MFP expects you to burn for the day.
For example in MFP under goals, my diet profile shows that my target daily calorie burned should be 2350.
Yesterday my Fitbit calorie burned was 2918 - so MFP gave me 567 exercise calories.
2350 + 567 = 2917 - which equals the total on Fitbit
01-25-2014 11:25
01-25-2014 11:25
01-31-2014 06:22
01-31-2014 06:22