Help with calories and portions

cavanmaniac

Right dudes I'm a few months into my eating plan and I'm happy that the lifestyle changes involved in eating six times are day are now set in stone, and I know what foods to eat and so on.

The only remaining thing for me to do now is get a good handle on portion sizes and calories and so on. I've read the sticky and done the maths on calories and so on; I'm desperate to lose body fat so I need to eat to a level of 15% less than my maintenance level, right?

I'm not really sure where to start after that. Obviously you read the back of packets and compute the serving sizes and so on but it's still a bit confusing to be honest.

I know there's websites detail nutritional breakdow of foods and so on too, but was still wondering how does everyone here do it?

tribulus

Generally I'd just gradually taper off the calories as the day goes on, mainly through reduction or removal of carbs. That usually works fine, kills two birds with one stone, i.e It makes sure you get a deficit - assuming you're eating the right amount for it and it lowers the carb intake later on in the day which will help prevent fat storage.

davyjose

I think a lot of it is trial and error. See what works for you and then try to stick to that. Personally, with portion sizes, if I eat til I'm full then I've eaten too much. If I start to feel full 20-30 mins after I've eaten, I know I'm ok. It sucks still being hungry after food, but it's the only real way I can keep my weight down. And by now, I know roughly how much to eat to get this.

EDIT: Agree with Trib - I eat 90% of my carbs early; I don't need them at night.

rubadub

Most packs in tescos have all the info on them, if one brand doesnt another similar one will. Say you want 1900kcal per day. You could have 400kcal breakfast, then 5x300kcal meals.

You get to know calorific values after a while, I can just look at what people eat and tot it up, and probably be +/-20%. The amount some people eat is shocking, and some people consider themselves dieting while eating 1000kcal+ in one sitting.

Some items will really surprise you, e.g. koka noodles. I have also spotted obvious mistakes on some items, the companies are probably missing out on sales as they appear to be extremely high in calories.

Bread is fairly high, I use iceberg lettuce as wraps for chicken & mince.

cavanmaniac

So say I'm preparing a meal and I want to know how many kcals I'm going to consume.

Is this the best way to do it: Divide the kcals on back of the product packet by the serving size to find out how much 1g equates to in kcal, and then weigh out as much of the product as you need to keep you kcal total for the day within the limits?

I definitely think I've been eating too much as I haven't seen so much as a .001% reduction on body fat as yet so it's time to get scientific and see if therein lies the answer!

BossArky

cavanmaniac wrote:

I know there's websites detail nutritional breakdow of foods and so on too, but was still wondering how does everyone here do it?

Setup an account on www.fitday.com

Record all the food you eat for 3 or 4 days. Post the link to your public food journal here and let people have a look.

Logging your food will allow you to see what you are eating and where the cals, fat, protein and alcohol if any are coming from.

rubadub

cavanmaniac wrote:

Is this the best way to do it: Divide the kcals on back of the product packet by the serving size to find out how much 1g equates to in kcal, and then weigh out as much of the product as you need to keep you kcal total for the day within the limits?

Yes, pretty much. They are listed in "per 100g", so the figure shown is a percentage. Say 400kcal per 100g, if you want 300kcal, then eat 300/400 x100g.

After a while you will have standard meals and do it in your head. e.g. I know my chicken fillet is around 120kcal, and the rolls I eat are 250kcal, so 370kcal.

That diet scales in lidl would help.

cavanmaniac

I actually bought it there yesterday. I was like a kid with a chemistry set weighing everything in sight.

It's not bad, as you said at the very least it's a cheap electronic scales but it has the values of 1000 common foods stored in there along with a tare function, you just pop the food on it and bash in a three digit code from the list of food supplied. It breaks down protein, carbs, kcals for the listed foods but not really sure if you can input your own foods and values and so on.

But sure for 15 bucks you wouldn't expect it to be able to make coffee, ham sandwiches and launch a nuclear warhead into the bargain so I'm content enough with it.

ali.c

I just worked out the kcal of my usual meals using fitday, i worked in a kitchen doing food prep for years so i have a good idea of weights etc. Used a scales to get an idea of portion size to put into fitday and work of that really.

TBH though i'll prob start just counting carbs once i start my new plan, as in my experience its a lot harder to overeat lean protein and healthy fats.

Its more an iterative process for me anyhow, try something see if its working if not change it slightly and see how it goes.

cavanmaniac

I've just been on fitday for an eternity entering foods and what have you. It's not totally precise so I'm guesstimating some portion sizes of 0.25 cups and so on but when I've more time I can add more custom foods with my customary helpings.

Anyway, according to fitday I have today consumed 2895 cals which should be accurate +/- a few here and there.

The breakdown is:

Calories Eaten Today
grams cals %total
Total: 2895
Fat: 155 1392 53%
Sat: 32 292 11%
Poly: 16 143 5%
Mono: 84 757 29%

Carbs: 131 416 16%
Fiber: 27 0 0%
Protein: 201 806 31%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

Is 53% of my total cals from fats way too high? It's mostly from olive oil drizzled across my chicken salad, the nuts I had mid-morning and another bit from the lean beef I had. So practically all good fats? Just curious to see what yis all think...

tribulus

It looks okay yeah, give it time obviously. You'll know in a few weeks assuming the same ratio's if you need to lower the fat and up the protein.

cavanmaniac

I'll be coming in at about 2500 today or so. I have a question though...

...as today is a gym day and I will therefore have burned off quite a few calories, does this mean that my overall clories intake is too low for achieving a goal of burning fat and building muscle?

Like do people here generally boost their calorie intake on a gym day so that they don't fall too far below their maintenance level?

cavanmaniac

**bump**

ali.c

cavanmaniac wrote:

I'll be coming in at about 2500 today or so. I have a question though...

...as today is a gym day and I will therefore have burned off quite a few calories, does this mean that my overall clories intake is too low for achieving a goal of burning fat and building muscle?

Like do people here generally boost their calorie intake on a gym day so that they don't fall too far below their maintenance level?

I usually work it out my maintenance on a weekly basis and then divide by 7 and work out my deficit of that. You can do it on a daily basis either. Somthing along the lines of this http://www.teamtestforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=761&highlight=anacat
might be of interest to you!

cavanmaniac

Ok dudes, for anyone that is interested in taking a look at the munitae of my diet for the past few days. All comments/observations welcome, indeed, sought after!

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=cavanmaniac

Ta!