Calorie Counting

Jonny303

Right, Ive been finally decided to start counting calories to supplement my exercise. Started this morning, so last night I sat down and wrote a list of thing i comanly eat with calories and nutrional value beside them.

Started today and was going grand until lunch, where I made a turkey rasher salad.

Now Ive decided im not going to count veggie calories, cos from what I can see, it cant do me any harm horseing them in. But what has me stumpd is the splash of olive oil, the handful of mixed nuts and the shaving of cheese on top.

How do you go about counting these, is it just a case of putting the work in and getting to know how much a handful actually is? Or is there another way around it, ie just adding say 200kcal at the end of the day to make up for drops of bits here and there.

Would really appreciate any advise.

P.S. Really starting to get into my cooking so the splash here and there is a big factor, weather ive to factor it in or not. cheers

rubadub

You really need a small digital scale for accurate calculations, argos have them, and they are on offer in lidl sometimes. Some "diet scales" even have foods preloaded, so e.g. you stick some bread on, press bread and it tells you the calories.

After a few weeks of weighing stuff you will get to know what your usual portions are. And will probably be shocked at the calorie content of some foods.

You can get lots of cals if you eat enough veg, so I would include it, esp. potatoes.

jt_dublin

I use http://www.fitday.com to track calories, carbs, protein, fat etc... It's very easy to use, has a lot of foods already loaded. You can add your own custom foods as well. It also has a section to input your activities etc... It's definitely worth a look.

Jonny303

Looks interesting. do you use the free one or the pc one? many other people use it?

jt_dublin

Jonny,
I just use the free one.... Someone on here recommended it to me about 2 years ago and I've seen it mentioned quite often since then. As I tend to eat mostly the same foods, it's very easy to use as you can search thru your recent foods and copy them into todays foods.

JT.

Jonny303

rite, ive started and one thing ive noticed.....im not eating HALF enough!

Other question i have is.....

ratio for protein/carbs/fat and advised at 25%/60%/15%

is this as a ratio per gram or per calorie breakdown?

cheers

Khannie

I highly recommend the scales too. I use it when I'm trying to shift weight. Nothing better for counting your calories. Sounds like a lot more hassle than it is too. For counting things like cheese shavings, I'd weight the cheese beforehand (really I'd just zero the scales with the full block on it), take what I want, then weigh it again to find out how much I'd taken off.