CALORIE COUNTING
Step One- selecting how/where you will count them.
Now, when it comes to calorie counting. You need to first decide how you want to track your calories. As I stated before, there are tons of apps for this, there are plenty of spreadsheets you could print out, you could start an easy excel chart. As an avid book reader and writer, I don't often feel like things are real until I have them in my hands. I elected to purchase a fitness journal. I take him everywhere with me because otherwise I don't keep track of myself.
Your second step of course it to determine how much you can eat.
How to calculate your daily calorie balance.
(Assuming you fall under 'average' mobility. If you are moderately active. If you have a sit down job or sit on the couch all day long your balance would be lower, if you wake up and run 5k every day obviously you would have a higher balance. Calories = energy. How much energy do you require a day?)
Your weight x fifteen = your daily calorie budget.
Your daily calorie budget - 500 = 1lb lost per week
Your daily calorie budget - 750 = 1.5lbs lost per week
Your daily calorie budget - 1000 = 2lb lost per week
And so on and so forth. \
Remember, it is suggested women maintain 1,200 calories per day and men 1,500.
NOW you have to actually calculate your daily fat limit too. This is were it gets you. That slice of Digorno pizza may have only 270 calories in it, but it has 15 (I think I'm pulling numbers out of memory here!) grams of fat in it and that is almost half your daily fat limit.
How to calculate your daily fat balance.
Daily calorie limit x .25 / 9 = daily fat balance
Now I'll explain that just a little bit. Your daily calorie limit is obvious in this equation. The reason it it multiplied by .25 is because diet experts recommend consuming 20-30% of your calories through fat. .25 is equivalent to 25% it is all divided by 9 because there are 9 calories in each gram of fat.
Simple right? Now each time you weigh yourself you should adjust your daily calorie and daily fat balance. Now, I feel the need to add a disclosure here. Don't think you can eat 200-500 calories a day and lose like 5 pounds in a week. One, it is not healthy. And two, eating is a way to jump start your metabolism (this is why breakfast is so important! If you don't eat breakfast you aren't boosting your metabolism until halfway through the day! Cook a damn egg, grab a damn protein bar, or eat a stinkin apple!) And second off, if you aren't consuming enough calories your body will go into a survival mode type. Instead of burning calories and fat it will try to store them to survive. When you decide you do want to eat your body (again thinking it is in survival mode) will store the food rather than burn it.
Step 3, counting your calories.
This should go almost without saying, but is probably one of the most problematic areas. Like I said, bring your book, spread sheet, app, or excel chart every where with you. Don't ever say "I'll add it in later." Do it now. And count everything you eat, yes that means you too handful of cheese puffs you stole off Steve's desk at work. Everything. You'll be surprised, when you start counting calories all the time you'll start not even looking at certain foods anymore. (I'm still talking about you cheese puffs.) Today I had two tic tacs, you can bet your ass I added those 3.8 (though I rounded to 4) calories in my log. This is your private log. You don't have to answer to anyone but yourself. There's no one to hide anything from. You, and your body, know exactly how many calories you ate today. Not writing down your 9 o'clock snack session does not mean it never happened. Write it down, and maybe a few days later when the urge creeps up on you to splurge you can see exactly how many calories you ate before. If you aren't accurately counting your calories, there is no point in counting them at all.
Now more about ME!
I have my daily calorie limit set to 1,500, but I have actually maintained a diet around 1,000 calories a day (excluded the day I decided I had extra calories left I would just get a McFlurry. Uh, no, 510 calories for one cup of ice cream?) I've eaten around 1,000-1,100 calories and still eaten Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack at least once a day. Are you flabbergasted?
It's all about what you eat. One ear of corn on the corn (no butter, no salt) boiled has about 80 calories. Yes, 80 calories, less than a light yogurt. And it's delicious. I have left over corn from Independence Day so that has been my breakfast almost every day. I had two pieces for lunch. (Lunch for under 200 calories? Crazy!). A typical peanutbutter and jelly sandwich has around 330 calories and a turkey sandwich with 2oz of turkey and (light) mayo is about 310. Then for dinner I'm usually at work so I get the microwave a lean cuisine or smart ones which are usually under 300 calories. Snacks I eat are the obvious, fruits and veggies. They sell individually bagged carrots with 35 calories per bag, eat grape has only 3 calories in it you could eat a whole handful for probably around 40 calories, a piece of cantoloupe has only 50 calories in it, etc. I like string cheese, yogurt, and popcorn as snacks.
If I ever round calories I round up. For exampled, my turkey sandwich is actually only 306 calories, but I just round it to 310. I don't round grams of fat though. I have a for scale, so when I put in my log that I had 100grams or chicken, I mean that I had 100 grams of chicken!
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