Have you Ever Counted Calories?

Oh my oh my how technology has changed and made life sooooo much simpler.

Thinking about counting calories?   It is sooooo easy to do now.

Unlike before.

Back in the day (OK, the late 90’s) I went through a phase where I counted calories.  This was before EVERYTHING was online, back when we still used the library for research and looked up things in books.

I bought this:

It contained almost everything….in detailed specifics:

And if I was going to eat a serving of corn, well, I had to look it up in the book, find the brand and type…..

And I would tally those calories and nutrition facts on paper.

Wellllll, you know me well enough to know I didn’t use paper….I made a handy dandy spreadsheet to track what I was eating.

And if it was a homemade recipe or something containing multiple ingredients… you betcha, I tracked that, too.  And if it wasn’t in the book, I’d find it someplace.

OMG.  Yes.  I.  Did.  I tracked every bite I ate.  I had daily goals of calories, fat intake, carbs and proteins, etc.

Looking back now….WOW.  I had no idea I’ve always been so obsessive/compulsive about this kind of stuff!  I mean, it was COMPLICATED to count calories.  And I did it?  How did I have the time?

Anyway….my point is that TODAY it is SOOO much easier to count your calories.

My favorite site is LoseIt.com.  I’ve been using it off and on for a few years now.

Recently I decided to start logging my food again, mostly as a way to cut back my snacking or unhealthy choices, because if I have to log it, I’m not always going to eat it.   It doesn’t stop me ALL the time, but it does stop me most of the time.

Anyway, Loseit.com…..you can use it on your computer, or there’s also an app for your smartphone.

OMG I am so in love with it!

Simple premise really….. click on the meal you want to add…..

And choose the foods you ate from the ever-expansive list.

You can also scan the barcode from whatever it is you are eating and it will log all the calories and nutrients per serving size FOR YOU.

You can adjust the serving size, too.

And there’s even KIRKLAND brand products in their database!

I’ve been using it to log all of my foods (because it’s so easy fast) and I haven’t found anything with a barcode yet that it doesn’t have the info for.

But wait, there’s more!

Homecooked meals are obviously not in their database.  But you CAN count those calories without a ton of fuss.  CalorieCount.About.com is an amazing site to enter recipes and get the nutrition data.

Just follow this link:  http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

Enter your recipe and the number of servings it makes and voila!  It returns the calories, fats, sugars, carbs, protein, sodium, etc. per serving!

It also gives a grade and Nutrition Label, too! [And no, that recipe does NOT call for 50 oz of parmesan cheese…it was supposed to say 50 GRAMS.  But hey.]

You can then manually enter that information into LoseIt.com and it will store that food item for future use.

So simple.

So there’s my tip of the day…..

If you want to count calories….I highly recommend LoseIt.com.  Use the website and the LoseIt app together for best results.

And if you want to REALLY count calories or alter recipes to make them healthier- use the Calories.Count.About website and enter your recipes to find out what you’re really eating!