Calorie counting vs. calorie recording page

[Vick]

I've seen lots of people say you don't have to count calories. I take this to mean that you don't want to set a budget of say 2000 calories and the second you hit it you done eating for the day.


I do record my calories. I want to to know what foods provide with the appropriate vitamin, mineral and energy contribution. I don't have a budget. I have the rare 3000 plus day, and some as low as 1100.


How do others feel about this?

[FlyNavyWife]

I think it's a good idea to record your foods for a while - you get used to what kinds of foods have various amounts of different nutrients - how much meat you actually need to get your required protein, foods that have surprisingly high carb counts, etc.... it's self-education, and that's always smart.


I recorded for a couple months but then stopped once I felt I had a good grasp on it. I'm not trying to lose weight though - If I were, I'd probably still be recording so I could analyze and tweak a bit.

[hakman73]

I'm doing the same. I think if you want to try out different approaches to get your diet right you just have to have some sound data to base your adjustments on.

You can't really experiment without statistics IMHO

[JamieBelle]

I track what I eat on fitday about 50% of the time. I find I eat roughly 1500-2000 calories, but I DON'T count calories. What I do count are grams of protein and grams of fat, to be sure I'm getting enough of both.

[Vick]

@jamieBelle

Good point. I watch my grams for protein, carbs and fat also.

[Sharonll]

Hi, Vick. As other have said, it's very helpful to record what you're eating until you have a good handle on your consumption. After you've done it a while, it becomes second nature, but tracking on fitday.com has helped me overcome more than one plateau. It's helpful to my incentive to make a weight goal, maybe two months down the road, and then record my weight against the goal, which shows up on a graph. Sometimes, that's all that's saved me from a mistake, when I think about that graph and let my competitive nature kick in. Even though I'm only competing against myself, it's quite helpful. And, free.

[JamieBelle]

Vick..I should add that for 30 days I tracked everything I ate on Fit Day, because as Sharon stated above you really need to do that to get an understanding of how much you're eating, what your portion sizes are, etc. I even bought a food scale because I didn't know what an ounce of nuts really meant. Now I know that it's a small handful, for my small hands.


Fitday is wonderful.

[Sharonll]

Right, JamieBell! I thought a handful of nuts was about twice the size it really was. What was counted as eleven almonds for me was more like twenty. I have large hands. Fitday absolutely rocks! I have a little digital scale that I bought on Amazon.com for around $20 and keep in my desk. Whenever I encounter something new, that I'm not entirely sure of, I weigh it on my scale. Extremely helpful.

[DiabetesCanKissMyButt]

Food scales are awesome!


I tracked for a couple months on fitday when i first started to make sure carbs were below 100 a day. Once I got the hang of it, I stopped. Gets tiresome after awhile.