Great Myth – How To Count

So before I explain how I count calories let me give you a current example of myself. Now remember, everyone is different so after you get an idea of how many calories you eat per day be sensible to what you can do. I know that for myself in the summer I can eat around 2500 calories per day to maintain my weight and in the winter it is more like 2000. Around the holidays last year I was taking in way more than 2000 calories a day, like most of us I assume. So I wanted to drop 10 pounds give or take a few. It was in the winter of course so I knew that I would need to eat less than 2000 calories per day. I decided that Monday-Thursday I would stay around 1200 calories per day and then on the weekends including Friday I would try and stay between 1500-2000 calories, just to give myself a little break. And shocker…I lost some weight and feel great. Okay, so how do I count them exactly? I think this is where people go off the deep end when they think about counting calories. Remember, we are not rocket scientists, well most of us anyway, and we should not to pretend to be either. You don’t need some complicated formula saying this is how you should count a certain way…blah…blah…blah. The fact is, there is not perfect way. But guess what…if you are serious about doing this, just the fact that you are trying to count calories will put you on the path to VICTORY! Okay that was a little cheerleaderish…but you get the point. You can find a rough estimate on how many calories are in almost anything with a quick Google search. Now, I am a single Father so I don’t cook too often so most of my food is pre-packaged. I know…I know….don’t judge. Anyway, it is pretty easy for me to figure out how many calories I eat because it is on the label. Are the labels accurate? Probably not 100% but it is good enough for what I’m trying to accomplish. If you are anything like me you eat a lot of the same things throughout the week. And when that happens, after a while you get to the point where you just know how many calories eat without even looking. But it can be just as easy to get a rough estimate if you cook a lot. It might take you a little more time to look at all of the ingredients and then add them up, but we all have calculators, right? I just have a small notebook in my kitchen that I use and as I eat, and drink, yes the pop counts, I write down the numbers and add them up as I go. Then I like to write down the total calories for each day in my planner so I can go back and see how I do, and yes, even the bad days. Let’s look at a few examples from my kitchen, shall we.