Counting Calories to Loose Weight

One way to loose weight is by counting calories. You can begin by going through the food items you have at home right now. Think about the meals you currently prepare every day. If you are planning on changing your routine to eat healthier, then write down the different meals on paper. After you have a good list of meals, prepare another list of all the food items you plan on eating each day. So, in one column you will have the food items and in the next column you will tally the calories. You can also include a third column for portion size if you like.

Remember to keep this simple. All we are talking about here is creating a food item list and a list of meals you can select from each day. Also, remember that many people don’t like counting calories because it can become too involved. This is where your list comes in because you have everything prepared ahead of time. Don’t forget to buy a small food scale as well. It will really help when you generate your list because the portion sizes you choose may not be the same as that on the food label. So, you may be doing some basic calculations in the beginning. If you really plan on doing this and keeping it up, it will be worth that initial effort.

If you have gone through and created both a list of meals and a list of food items along with the associated calories you should be ready to begin counting your calories each day. Some kind of journal will be useful as you do this. Try and keep track of everything you consume each day and record it. Perhaps, set aside 20 minutes each night to log all of the meals you consumed in the day, and prepare what meals you plan on eating tomorrow. In addition to having a plan in place, this will also help you see where you may be falling off track.

Try using your calorie chart from your list in a very simple way. It isn’t necessary to measure every portion you eat throughout the day. In fact, you probably shouldn’t weigh any of them. Pick portion sizes that are roughly the same as you used when you generated your initial list. You already weighed those right? You can easily figure out how many calories you are consuming if you keep things consistent. Be cautious to not over do the actual counting of calories. Keep it simple. If it becomes too much work you probably won’t keep up with it.

One way to maintain this simplicity is calculate the calories in all the meals you plan to prepare. You can even give each meal a unique name and then each night all you need to do is select 6 meals (if you are eating 6 small meals a day) from your list and there will be little counting of calories.

Of course there are many ways to count calories. This blog post outlines one possible way. Keeping it simple is the best way to ensure you keep up with your healthy eating plan. And by taking the extra time in the beginning to count calories in all your foods the work involved in counting calories is already done. All you need to do is be disciplined enough to take out 20 minutes or so each night to enter what you ate that day and plan out which meals you will be eating tomorrow.

www.TheDietSolutionProgram.com

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>