Calorie Counting

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not someone who can just try to eat until I feel full, or simply make a few substitutions in my diet to lose the weight. My body’s hunger signals have long been screwed up, probably thanks to those emotional binges of entire bags of Doritos in my teen years. Food and I are too closely linked on an emotional level at this point to consider letting hunger signals guide my intake.

So instead, I count. In the past, I’ve counted points using Weight Watchers, and that has worked very well. At the moment, I’m counting raw calories. I use a free iPhone app called Lose It! (also available in website form, too) to keep track of all of my calories each week. It’s easy to use: I input my current weight, tell it how much weight I’d like to lose per week, and then log all of my food and exercise. Since my iPhone is always with me, it’s easy to remember.

At first it’s hard to count calories, especially when you have a daily limit you don’t want to exceed. It’s easy to eat too much during the day, then find yourself with few calories left for dinner. Or worse: starve yourself all day – not wanting to be without calories for dinner – then binge at dinner from being so hungry. Often it’s eye-opening to see how many calories are in your favorite foods, too. Who knew a serving of french fries could be more calories than a 7oz steak?

Lately I’ve become pretty savvy at working my calories. Just look at everything I ate yesterday:

Breakfast: 1 piece of 10-grain bread with peanut butter

Lunch: Applebees Grilled Dijon & Portobello Chicken with roasted potatoes and broccoli (450 calories total!)

Dinner: Spinach & mushroom deep dish pizza (Lean Cuisine) and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich

Snacks: string cheese, 2-bite strawberry shortcake cupcakes (3)

All of that food, and I was still under my calorie budget for the day! I had 200 calories left that I could have eaten, but truthfully I was full on all of that.

Now, I’m in no way saying that is my healthiest day of eating. The cupcakes were a last minute splurge at work before midnight, and strawberry filling doesn’t exactly count as fruit.

Looking over that day, I needed some fruit in there somewhere. Could have probably added it to breakfast or switched out the ice cream sandwich for some strawberries and whipped cream. Plenty of protein for the day, though, and a decent amount of vegetables for me.

I like counting calories, though, because I can use them to plan, and seeing my calories over an entire day, or spread out over the entire week helps me realize that it’s OK to indulge a little, as long as it all balances out. I knew I had the calories for those mini-cupcakes, so I didn’t feel guilty about eating them. And if I choose to have McDonald’s for a meal this week, I can see that one day of going slightly over won’t wreck anything.

How do you approach food when it comes to losing weight? Do you count calories, measure your foods, eat until you feel full, or something else?

(And just because it needs to be said in this era of full disclosure, I am not affiliated with Lose It! and was not asked to promote their app or site. They have no idea who I am – I just like the app.)