How do you calculate your calorie intake?

Zulu

Sorry I'm new to all this and eager to get fitter/loose some weight.

Generally speaking I eat:

8am: 1 mug of tea (milk, no sugar)
9:30am: 1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 2 slices of soda bread (butter).
1pm: either toasted ham & cheese (white bread) or brown bread sandwich (tuna, sweetcorn & onion or egg mayo & onion).
3pm: orange
6pm: meat (chicken/stake/pork chop), potato (mash/baked), broccoli & carrots.

Can anyone tell me how am I supposed to calculate how many calories that is?

Also, I've a cross trainer and I do about 40-50mins on that 4/5 days a week. It "calculates" that I'm burning 470 odd calories each time - is this accurate? Can these machines be trusted?

Any help appreciated folks.

Dovers

Zulu wrote: »

Sorry I'm new to all this and eager to get fitter/loose some weight.

Generally speaking I eat:

8am: 1 mug of tea (milk, no sugar)
9:30am: 1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 2 slices of soda bread (butter).
1pm: either toasted ham & cheese (white bread) or brown bread sandwich (tuna, sweetcorn & onion or egg mayo & onion).
3pm: orange
6pm: meat (chicken/stake/pork chop), potato (mash/baked), broccoli & carrots.

Can anyone tell me how am I supposed to calculate how many calories that is?

Also, I've a cross trainer and I do about 40-50mins on that 4/5 days a week. It "calculates" that I'm burning 470 odd calories each time - is this accurate? Can these machines be trusted?

Any help appreciated folks.

1. You go to www.fitday.com and open a free account

2. No those machines cannot be trusted they are not really accurate at all

mega man

Zulu wrote: »

Sorry I'm new to all this and eager to get fitter/loose some weight.

Generally speaking I eat:

8am: 1 mug of tea (milk, no sugar)
9:30am: 1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 2 slices of soda bread (butter).
1pm: either toasted ham & cheese (white bread) or brown bread sandwich (tuna, sweetcorn & onion or egg mayo & onion).
3pm: orange
6pm: meat (chicken/stake/pork chop), potato (mash/baked), broccoli & carrots.

Can anyone tell me how am I supposed to calculate how many calories that is?

Also, I've a cross trainer and I do about 40-50mins on that 4/5 days a week. It "calculates" that I'm burning 470 odd calories each time - is this accurate? Can these machines be trusted?

Any help appreciated folks.

whats your goal? I cant see the point in counting calories, its very frustrating

Dovers

Zulu wrote: »

Sorry I'm new to all this and eager to get fitter/loose some weight.

.

Captain Furball

If your serious about counting calories you will need a weighing scales.
Go onto fitday like Dovers said and start counting.
You'll get better at doing it and remember most things off by heart.
good luck with it.

TommyKnocker

Hi There

If you are familiar with using Excel, then you can throw together a spreadsheet which you can use to count your calories. I have just put one together and it works quite well.

I found Fitday frustrating as it seems to be mostly geared towards American food stuff and measures. Though in truth I did not spend too long trying to figure it out.


Best Regards,

Michael

Zulu

I must be doing something wrong. I put in as close as I could find to what I originally stated in Fitday, see:

Bread, oat bran, toasted (2)
Oatmeal, cooked, regular; Bacon and cheese sandwich, with spread
Beef, potatoes, and vegetables (including carrots, broccoli,...
Orange, raw.
Honey,
Sugar (2)
Butter, stick, salted (3)


...and it's telling me, I'd consume 1165 Cals, and burn 2865. With a deficit like this, weight should be falling off me!?!

What have I done wrong please?

woodsl

Hi Zulu,

First of all, you need to know how many calories a day your body needs to maintain its current weight. Click Here and use the calories per day calculator. I would say you are very active if you run that much so enter that.

When setting your calorie intake, aim to eat 500 to 1000 calories less than your body needs. Your body will start burning the calories it has stored in your fat to make up the difference. Don't drop your calorie intake too much because, a) its not very nice to be starving all the time, and b) your body will kick in to starvation mode and store any new food intake as fat. Do not drop your intake below 1200 calories unless you are under medical supervision.

Buy yourself a small notepad that will fit into your pocket, and a weighing scales for your food. Use the notepad to start a food diary. When you make a ham sandwich, for example, write:
Bread x2 - 200
Ham - 25
Low low - 40

You will be able to find this information on the food's packets where the nutritional information is. The value you want is kilo calories per serving and then find out what that serving is. If you are eating porridge, weigh out the amount of porridge oats as dictated by the serving size on the packet (e.g. Flahavan's Oat Porridge says that 40g is 155 calories), then add a serving of milk (when you read the milk carton, it will tell you that a serving is 200mls (low fat milk is approx 90-100 calories)). Now in your diary, write down:
Porridge - 155
Milk - 95

In this way you will be able to set a target based on your own body's needs and modify your calorie intake as your weight comes down. Click here for a database of foods and their nutritional values.

Note: that it is important to eat a balanced diet. A banana with your porridge will cost you around 100 calories but banana's are an excellent source of potassium, which has shown to have significant health benefits. A rule of thumb is that if you have to take vitamin supplements, then you are not eating a balanced diet. If you try to make your own food, using vegetables (fresh or frozen) and meat as opposed to packaged food, you will eat better, healthier and your calorie intake will be much easier to maintain.

In terms of your treadmill telling you how many calories you have burned, this is inaccurate, because the more calories your body needs to maintain itself (i.e. the bigger you are), the more calories it burns during exercise. (e.g. a fat person running for the same amount of time as a skinny person will burn off far more calories).

I've been doing this for a while now and the results are definitely there.
Good luck.

Zulu

thanks a million woodsl, that link is telling me I need 2231 cals.

I put down sedentary, as I'm in a desk job, and the cross trainer is the only exercise I get, and I only started it this week.

Assuming that the "FitDay" calculation is correct and I'm running a deficit of say 1500 cals a day, at what rate (very roughly) would I be loosing weight? Or is that an impossible question??

Dovers

Zulu wrote: »

thanks a million woodsl, that link is telling me I need 2231 cals.

I put down sedentary, as I'm in a desk job, and the cross trainer is the only exercise I get, and I only started it this week.

Assuming that the "FitDay" calculation is correct and I'm running a deficit of say 1500 cals a day, at what rate (very roughly) would I be loosing weight? Or is that an impossible question??

You don't want to be running a deficit of any more than 500 cals daily. You should be aiming for weight (i.e.fat) loss of no more than 1-2 lbs per week. I might add also that you should aim to drink 2.5-3 litres water daily which will help you towards your goal

Khannie

Dovers wrote: »

You don't want to be running a deficit of any more than 500 cals daily.

I'll run a deficit of 1000 today. 1000 a day for 7 days a week is roughly 2 pounds a week. I find this level means you're hungry some / most of the time even if you eat very well (lots of veg, slow release foods, etc.). If you do 500 a day properly you wont notice it.

A maintenance day is nice too. I'd rather run a 600 deficit 6 days a week and have a 7th day of maintenance calories than run 500 x 7 myself but it's an individual thing of course.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

This a better BMR calculator IMO: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

When you start off, weigh all your food and calculate calories from loads of sites, I think fitday is kinda crap tbh. Just google the food plus calories and loads of sites will pop up. After a while, you wont need to weigh, you'll know by looking.

Buy some whey and use it to get roughly 1g per 2lbs of body mass, depends on how much muscle you have. For the rest of your calories, eat whatever you want as long as you're 500 calories below your maintenance a day. Frequency of meals and type of food (after you've enough protein) don't really matter.

You don't need to exercise if your diet is in check but you should do some weights to preserve as much muscle as possible.

Cheat days aren't that bad but they do slow you down. Same with alcohol unless you practically eat nothing that day. What I like to do is kill it on the treadmill before a night on the sauce. Don't listen to 99% of what you read on the net and especially on this forum, I say you could find threads to contradict every other thread on this forum.

woodsl

Hi Zulu,

As others have said, don't cut your calorie intake down too much. Maybe look at eating around 2000 calories a day, and then make the extra 300 calories up on your treadmill. As Dover said, drink plenty of water - the colder the better. The reason that this is helpful is because your body will expend calories raising the water's temperature up to your own body temperature (therefore the colder the better) so that it can use it and water itself doesn't contain any calories.

The reason its not a good idea to lose too much weight too quickly is because your body will kick itself into starvation mode. Say your target weight is 12 stone and you currently weigh 14 stone. If you lost that weight in too quick a period, then your body would think it was starving. When you hit your 12 stone target and started eating more calories again, your body would use as few calories as possible and store the rest as fat for it to use later, and all your hard work would be undone. Aside from the aesthetic side of it, it is also very unhealthy.

With that in mind, I will answer your question about how much you will lose. For every 3,500 calories under what you require to maintain your weight, you will lose approximately 1lb. So, if you your calorie intake is about 500 calories less than what your body needs to maintain its weight, per day, then that's 1 pound per week (1 stone every 14 weeks).

Just keep in mind that there are lots of ways to spend calories, without cutting down your food too much. As mentioned above, exercise is important (the fitter and stronger you are, the better you'll feel) as is plenty of water (which your body needs anyway).

Anyway, hopefully this is of some help to you and good luck.

BossArky

Zulu wrote: »

I'm new to all this and eager to get fitter/loose some weight.

Well done on getting started. Without getting bogged down in the detail just remember to consume less, ensure the stuff you do consume is "good" and exercise more.

Zulu wrote: »

Also, I've a cross trainer and I do about 40-50mins on that 4/5 days a week. It "calculates" that I'm burning 470 odd calories each time - is this accurate? Can these machines be trusted?

It is good to use the calorie burn as a marker for how "hard" you worked in a session if you are consistently using the same machine.

e.g. on Monday you burn 470 calories in 45 mins, but on Tuesday you burn 490 in 45 mins.... therefore you probably worked a bit harder going up an incline on Tuesday.

I wouldn't try and compare these cardio machines to real life calorie burning as they are probably slightly exaggerated to get people excited and sell that particular machine.

Fitday.com is a good starting point.

Mellor

Zulu wrote: »

8am: 1 mug of tea (milk, no sugar)
9:30am: 1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 2 slices of soda bread (butter).
1pm: either toasted ham & cheese (white bread) or brown bread sandwich (tuna, sweetcorn & onion or egg mayo & onion).
3pm: orange
6pm: meat (chicken/stake/pork chop), potato (mash/baked), broccoli & carrots.

Can anyone tell me how am I supposed to calculate how many calories that is?

You'll need weights of each item.
And then use a site such as fitday or http://www.nutritiondata.com/
I prefer nutritiondata. After a while you'll be used to it and its second nature.

Zulu wrote: »

I must be doing something wrong. I put in as close as I could find to what I originally stated in Fitday, see:

Bread, oat bran, toasted (2)
Oatmeal, cooked, regular; Bacon and cheese sandwich, with spread
Beef, potatoes, and vegetables (including carrots, broccoli,...
Orange, raw.
Honey,
Sugar (2)
Butter, stick, salted (3)


...and it's telling me, I'd consume 1165 Cals, and burn 2865. With a deficit like this, weight should be falling off me!?!

What have I done wrong please?

What weights were you putting in?
I really doubt its that low. Take your breakfast.

1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 2 slices of soda bread (butter).

A coffee will be 50-150 cals, Porridge will be 150-300cals, bread will be 100-200 cals. So total will be 300-650 cals

It varies so much based on portion size.
I had a bowl of porridge this morning, with blueberries (the business btw), it would of been 145 cals. Some here would eat twice that for a bowl.

BossArky wrote: »

It is good to use the calorie burn as a marker for how "hard" you worked in a session if you are consistently using the same machine.

This is what I use them for. To compare various sets of similar time on the same machine. I think they are accurate enough at my gym. Running for a short distance I hit 860 cals/hr and cycling I hit 650, seams to be about right based on rates publish online. Can't be miles off over 15-25 minutes.

Zulu

cheers for all the replies so far folks!
Unfortunately it's not practical for me to weigh my breakfast and lunch as I have these in work, however, I'm rarely starving, so the portions aren't small. (ie porridge is a breakfast bowl full) I guess I just need to work out the weight of that - easy enough.


Why so much water? ordinary I'd only drink about 300-500ml per day. Would drinking that much not have me in and out of the toilet like a lunatic (and put pressure on my kidneys)?

Khannie

Zulu wrote: »

Unfortunately it's not practical for me to weigh my breakfast and lunch as I have these in work

I weigh stuff all the time in work. People don't give a fiddlers. I bought one of these off dealextreme. Crackin' device for around 7 euro including delivery.

edit: Another alternative is to weigh stuff before you bring it in.

Zulu

Dovers wrote: »

I might add also that you should aim to drink 2.5-3 litres water daily which will help you towards your goal

Can I ask again - why so much water? I've struggled for the last few days to drink 1.5 litres. I really don't think I can double that. Also, I'm peeing like I dunno what - are you sure drinking hat much is healthy for me kidneys/liver?

sfag

use google to look up food calorie guides and convert american sizes to metric ie 4 ozs = 100g. Understand exactly how much that is per portion.

8am: 1 mug of tea (milk, no sugar) prob 30 calories
9:30am: 1 mug of coffee (milk, 2 sugar), 60 cals
1 bowl of porridge (teaspoon honey, drop of milk), 230 ish.
2 slices of soda bread (butter). I'd say 450 cals.
1pm: either toasted ham & cheese (white bread) or brown bread sandwich. 500 cals.
3pm: orange - 60 cals.
6pm: meat (chicken/stake/pork chop), potato (mash/baked), broccoli & carrots. 650 cals.

I'm assuming moderate portions but really am flying blind here.

If you are cutting cals then make your small amount of food deliver the maximum nutrition.
bread & spuds convert to fat via the blood stream pretty fast. Eating meat with them slows this prrocess dow enought for you to burn the cals contained within off - if you are moving around.

Simply follow this.
Meat at every meal.
salad and fiborous verg only with the meat but not without.
snack on nuts and berries.
take green tea and fish oil.

no spuds, pasta, bread, alcohol

Moderate portions

sfag

Zulu wrote: »

Also, I've a cross trainer and I do about 40-50mins on that 4/5 days a week. It "calculates" that I'm burning 470 odd calories each time - is this accurate? Can these machines be trusted?

.

short answer is no.
but 470 cals is probably right - could be more.

I walk on empty some mornings if you can.

sfag

mega man wrote: »

whats your goal? I cant see the point in counting calories, its very frustrating

Probably worth while doing until one - as a beginner - gets an idea of what is calorie dense and what is calorie light.

sfag

Zulu wrote: »

Can I ask again - why so much water? I've struggled for the last few days to drink 1.5 litres. I really don't think I can double that. Also, I'm peeing like I dunno what - are you sure drinking hat much is healthy for me kidneys/liver?

Remember the magic 2 litres of water a day is a misrepresented scientific fact - bit like the spinach myth.
You are recommended to take 2 litres including milk, tea, coffee, juice, food, etc.
Most people will hit that mark.

other reasons for belting the water into you might be to stav off hunger pangs of help with water retention (it helps believe it or not).

Mellor

sfag wrote: »

Remember the magic 2 litres of water a day is a misrepresented scientific fact - bit like the spinach myth.

Whats that?

kjl

Zulu wrote: »

I must be doing something wrong. I put in as close as I could find to what I originally stated in Fitday, see:

Bread, oat bran, toasted (2)
Oatmeal, cooked, regular; Bacon and cheese sandwich, with spread
Beef, potatoes, and vegetables (including carrots, broccoli,...
Orange, raw.
Honey,
Sugar (2)
Butter, stick, salted (3)


...and it's telling me, I'd consume 1165 Cals, and burn 2865. With a deficit like this, weight should be falling off me!?!

What have I done wrong please?

well you need to increase your metabolism, you need to split these meals into 6 smaller portions a day, and drink loads of water maybe 5-6 liters, also you protein intake is next to nothing. Your diet is mostly carbs.

loose the sugar and butter

Zulu

kjl wrote: »

well you need to increase your metabolism, you need to split these meals into 6 smaller portions a day, and drink loads of water maybe 5-6 liters, also you protein intake is next to nothing. Your diet is mostly carbs.

loose the sugar and butter

WHAT 5-6 litres?!? You are taking the piss at this stage. Did you read my previous post? Why 5-6 litres of water? Please?

TommyKnocker

Hi There

No expert here, but IMHO 5-6 lt of water per day is maybe a little excessive.

It is possible to harm you body with too much water just as it is with too little. Google Hypnoatremia. Now this is usually a problem in exterme conditions, but it is possible.

Check out these two links for some information


Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication


Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283


From what I have read and the procedure I follow is to drink around 8 x 8oz glases (roughly equivelent to 2lt) of fluid per day. All fluids you take on count towards this. I only drink either green tea of water with the exception of 200ml of low fat milk with breakfast each morning.

The guide I use is that I urinate roughtly every hour or so and the color of my urine is a very pale yellow or clear.

The best thing you can do is to keep a bottle of water beside you and sip from it regulary throughout the day.


Best Regards,


M

Zulu

I take it "salted peanuts" & "dry roasted" are not ok to snack on? (because I actually really like them)

Can you please advise which peanuts are your favourates/are ok to snack on? Thanks again for all your help folks

neuro-praxis

Zulu wrote: »

I take it "salted peanuts" & "dry roasted" are not ok to snack on? (because I actually really like them)

Can you please advise which peanuts are your favourates/are ok to snack on? Thanks again for all your help folks

They're fine occasionally, but what you really want to be snacking on are raw nuts. And in terms of nutrition, peanuts are not the best kind. I'd go for almonds or cashews myself. A portion is smaller than you'd imagine...I'm sorry to say it's about 10 nuts! I actually don't eat that many nuts because I find it very hard to stop at a small handful. You'd blink and the bag is gone!

Khannie

Zulu wrote: »

WHAT 5-6 litres?!?

+1 on this. My own rule is 2 litres + 1 litre per workout and I'd consider that on the safe side of hydration. Your pee colour is a good indication. There should be some yellow to it.

Zulu

well bollix to that. I'd rather not snack at all (which I don't really do) than nibble in a single handful of nuts - which'd only serve to whet my appitite!

Thanks for the info n-p

beegirl

Mellor wrote: »

Whats that?

I think the spinach myth is that it contains loads and loads of iron - that's why Popeye gets all muscley when he eats it But apparently it's no higher in iron than any other green veg - I read that the myth originally got started cos a scientist stuck an extra zero somewhere.

To the OP, I just started using dailyburn.com for entering in food intake and it seems to be very good... not just US foods in the database, and it also gives you a breakdown of fat/carbs/protein which is good. I never used fitday.com, but I used to use The Daily Plate and Daily Burn is definitely much better than that

sfag

Mellor wrote: »

Whats that?

The spinach myth.
Its as good as many other good veg but the belief that it is so much better came about when the initial scientific research placed a decimal in the wrong place when quoting its nutritional benefits - sorry Popeye.

Another one - that eggs are/were bad for you - came around when the scientist killed a rabit (vegetarian by force feeding him eggs).

Mellor

sfag wrote: »

The spinach myth.
Its as good as many other good veg but the belief that it is so much better came about when the initial scientific research placed a decimal in the wrong place when quoting its nutritional benefits - sorry Popeye.

I heard that alright. But wasn't it quickly corrected. At least by now obviously.

mg/100g
Spinach = 2.7
Cabbage = 0.47
Sprouts = 1.4
Carrots = 0.66
Broccolli = 0.73

Beef = 1.8

Sourced from various so sorry if they are off. Spinach still looks to be a decent source of iron. But its hardly amazing.

To be honest, this applies to all vitamins in some way. Ask people to name a source of Vitamin C, 99% will say orange. Oranges are really a good source, compared to most foods.

Another one - that eggs are/were bad for you - came around when the scientist killed a rabit (vegetarian by force feeding him eggs).

lol, I love to see a source for that. Or a site that tries to portray it as true (that eggs are bad). Even scientists can be stupid