Ugh! Calorie Counting

[ladeejoi]

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?

[Ukase]

The older I get, the more I realize how little I know about things I thought I knew a lot about.

Since I got my FitBit, I've been weighing my food. My math tells me I should have lost about 10 more pounds than I have. But, I've been lifting weights as well as dieting, so perhaps the lack of loss of pounds is due to an increase in muscle - but I wouldn't think at 47 I could put on that much muscle mass in a few short months. (Since Thanksgiving)

Calorie counting is truly a challenge. Not because it's too much work or overly complicated, but because we have to trust the internet for the base information. Think about it. Calories in a sweet potato. At first, I used Small, Medium and Large. Historically, I didn't eat vegetables. They taste disgusting, the look kind of creepy and pizza and pop-tarts, with a side of Nutella is going to win out against them every time. Come to find out, that this small potato is 9.5 ounces, and really a "large". So, there's definitely some variance there. But - by what authority does someone decide how many calories are in a given ounce of sweet potato? Or any other food, for that matter?

Different people use different sites to get their information. I think, for the most part, any fruit or vegetable is probably going to be as close to accurate as we can get.

For meats, I think it's an entirely different ballgame. Poultry, like chicken or turkey can vary in their calories, depending on how much fat is in the meat, same as any other meat. The leaner the cut, the fewer calories per ounce. But - I don't think all meat is the same, just because it has the same meat to fat ratio.

Who can really say? Is a calorie really just a calorie? Or are some calories more calories than what anyone thinks? After several months of counting calories, I'm convinced that I can't trust restaurants to have a clue as to how many calories their food contains. In many cases, they may be close, but I don't think they're within 10% of the actual number. There's too much room for variation. Consider a chips-a-hoy cookie. How many chips does it have in each cookie? This number may be the same for two out of four cookies, but one will have less, the other more. A consistent product, but the calorie count will be different because of the chips.

In the end, we are all doing the best we can with the information we have. But, boy, I'd love to visit a lab and actually see the math they use to determine the calories in the foods I eat. I'd swear someone needs to retake math!

[gerrymcd]

A Calorie (kcal) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius.   Back in the day, the Calories in a particular food was determined experimentally - the food was put in a bomb calorimeter and burned.  The heat given off was converted to kcals.  As you say, these days its done by calculaition, rather than expriment. The calculation uses the average values of 4 Kcal/g for protein, 4 Kcal/g for carbohydrate, and 9 Kcal/g for fat.  Thus the label on an energy bar that contains 10 g of protein, 20 g of carbohydrate and 9 g of fat would read 201 kcals or Calories.

So, yes, their math may be ok, but there will indeed be a huge variation in packaged food, and even more in things like a Subway sandwich where there is no real control on the number of slices of meat/cheese and glob of dressing.

[Mary]

Additionally, the use of average calorie values tends to usually suffice because there is error on both sides-- Sometimes your ounce of chicken is more caloric than the average, sometimes less.  

Where things don't even out is when human measurement is involved.  By nature, we undermeasure way more than we overmeasure.  We are far more likely to give ourselves 4T. of dressing and log it as 3T. than to give ourselves 2T. and log it as 3T.  And the cook at Chili's is far more likely to give you more meat and cheese on your nachos than the corporate specs call for.  

But we don't need a ton of precision because if you're logging deficits and not losing, you know which direction you need to tweak things.  

[nottaken101]

You can actually input calories through the Fitbit dashboard itself.

I, too, hated tracking calories but got used to it and believe it's key to losing weight. Before calorie counting, I was consuming up to 3500 calories on a bad emotional eating day. After I started recording what I ate, I got down to 2500 immediately.

What helps me is approximately calories instead of getting obsessed with figuring out precisely how many calories are in whatever I just ate.

[JustJill]

The app that Fitbit has is very easy to use. My suggestion is to pay some attention to your calories but don't get nuts about it. If you are eating the right kind of food you don't need to keep track. As for going out, most places have on online nutritional menu so you can see what is what. Also, some places even have that info on the menu when you get there or offer 'lighter' meals. 

Things to avoid in your daily diet to give the best weight loss possible are, no dairy milk, no wheat (brown or otherwise) unless it is sprouted wheat, no canola oil or vegetable oil (grapeseed oil, olive oil, butter (organic) & coconut butter are best) no cereal (those are just bad carbs), no sweets (except honey, real maple syrup and stevia but make sure it is just the extract nothing else) Oh and eat fruit but don't go nuts, lots of sugar lead to fat. Eat as much vegetables as you would like though!!

 These are just a few suggestions that have helped me and will help anyone on their journey toward weight loss. I have lost 26.5 pounds since January 22, 2014, along with my motivating Fitbit one and the scale!!

[patrish]

If you're preparing meals at home, there are some useful web apps to calculate the nutritional value of combined foods. The one I use is Calorie Count. Enter ingredients and amounts (or copy and paste from an online recipe) and the app provides the familiar nutritional values table. 

[Jo-dee]

Love the interaction with fitness pal as well!   Weight watchers also has a great scale and serving spoons that measure out 1 cup, 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup to make life simple.  The way fitness pal uploaded to fitbit was awesome.  

[slysam]

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@ladeejoi wrote:

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?

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I agree it is a pain, but I get my best results when I accurately log food. My tip for what makes it easiest for me (at home) is a digital food scale. I am sure this was mentioned, but I will give my own take on it too.  You want a scale that has a flat surface, can toggle between grams and ounces, and can be zeroed out with a weight on it. Then for your example of cereal and milk: 1--put the bowl on the scale then zero it 2--add the cereal and not the weight (servings sizes are usually in grams on packages), note or log it. 3--zero the scale, now add the milk and note the weight. log it or note it. Done!

Another tip I learned from another forum that is handy for things in a container like peanut butter or hummus... Put the whole container on the scale then zero it. Take what you use out, the weight used will now show as a negetive number. What I like about this is that you don't need to do extra dishwashing and at the same time you train your eyes to what your portions look like on your plates.

Eating out, I just trust the restaurant's nutrition data and divide that by whatever proportion I ate (if not the whole thing). I usually go to independent restaurants so it isn't as easy, then I look for a similar dish from a chain restaurant. Or I try to reconstruct the recipe if it is something where I can see the what ingredients are used (i.e. a salad). 

[JazzFM1967]

Could you send me a link to how to fully sync these two apps.  Most interested in getting food data from FitBit to Myfitnesspal

Thanks

[CallieM]

@JazzFM1967 please check out this article on integrating MyFitnessPal and Fitbit. Hope this helps!

[JazzFM1967]

Nope this doesn't solve the problem.

[Jo-dee]

You need to go into settings for fitness pal and you can turn in features that @Talk with each other". Both have calorie counting features and just pick the one u like for logging. I have gravitated to weight watcher and turned on features In settings for both so my Fitbit steps talks with weight watchers where I am tracking. Hope that helps.

Sent from my iPhone

[AndrewFitbit]

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@JazzFM1967 wrote:

Could you send me a link to how to fully sync these two apps.  Most interested in getting food data from FitBit to Myfitnesspal

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@JazzFM1967 It doesn't work like that, only MFP sends food data. Here's how the integration works:

MyFitnessPal to Fitbit

MyFitnessPal → Fitbit
Activities
Food

• Activities from MyFitnessPal are synced to Fitbit as manually logged activities (won't count towards leaderboards/challenges)

Fitbit to MyFitnessPal

Fitbit → MyFitnessPal
Steps
Weight

Hope that helps clarify.