How to Simplify Keeping Track of Your Calories

From http://www.zacking.com:

7 tips to help you simplify keeping track of your calories.

Transcript:
Keeping track of how much you're eating is the single most important factor in successfully managing your weight. Not only does this give you a clear picture of where you're headed, it also reveals that the overeating days are not nearly as bad as they are made out to be.

So here are 7 simple tips to help you do this regularly:

1. Count Calories Only:
If you start keeping track of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, sodium and every other nutritional value under the sun, the entire process will become confusing and difficult to manage. If your goal is weight loss, keep track of calories alone and use your good judgment to decide what to eat.

2. Use Zacking! Foods to Estimate The Calorie Number:
If it looks like a donut and it tastes like a donut, it probably has as many calories as a donut. So instead of trying to figure out the exact calorie number for everything, check out Zacking! foods and go for a close estimate.

3 Keep track of EVERYTHING you eat:
Keep track of everything you eat, regardless of how much you've eaten. If your calories consumed on paper end up being less than what you're actually eating, you'll be losing less than what your numbers reflect.

In our minds, this can quickly degenerate into another method that did not work. So ensure that your written estimates are as close as possible to what you actually eat, even if you've gone significantly over your daily requirements.

4 Use Abbreviations:
Use a shorter form to make the process quicker. For example, if you figure that your lunch with a beverage ends up being 450 calories, while without the beverage it's 325, simply put down "L-B" when having a beverage & just an "L" when not.

Make up something that makes it quicker to write down the calories consumed. The less hassle in the process, the more likely you are to keep track.

5 Put Down Numbers Only:
Once you're comfortable keeping track of how much you're eating, simply put down the numbers. This is especially useful if you're eating similar foods everyday.

6. Make a Quick note of it after every meal:
If you don't want to get on the internet after every meal, just make a quick note of what you've just eaten. At the end of the day, or whenever you're free, use Zacking.com to figure out and tally the numbers.

7. Keep A List Of Your 9 Or 10 Favorite Foods Handy:
This is especially useful when you are starting out. Take some time to make a calories list of the food items you eat most often. You can use a piece of paper or a program on your computer like the Notepad - just the most frequently eaten 9 or 10 foods.

This will provide you with easy access to the food numbers you will use the most.

This is Victor Locke for Zacking.com, thank you very much for watching and we hope this helped simplify weight management for you.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Calories
• Fitness
• Food
• Healthy