How to Make Calorie Counting Easier & More Effective

I likely would not have lost 25lb without counting calories. It took a long time for me to realize that calories are the key to weight gain, weight maintenance, and weight loss, but once I did and started tracking my calories consistently, the results followed. It wasn’t easy at first—here are some things I learned along the way.

Plan your meals the night before - and put them in the app

This is an important step. Some people don’t want to do this because they’re afraid they won’t want what they had planned the night before. Most often, you will probably end up going with what you had decided, but if not, it’s okay to switch it up the next day and replace it with another meal. This step is extremely important because it will help you to avoid trying to make calories fit in the moment. You are unlikely to accidentally choose foods that fit your calories. It’s an intentional choice—make it with the logical part of your brain the night before rather than going off of emotional whims and preferences in the moment.

Create regular meals in your app

Everyone eats meals on repeat. Whichever app you choose to use, there is likely a feature to “create a meal” so that you don’t have to log every food item individually. This can be a time saver and also reduces how “tedious” calorie counting can sometimes feel.

Weigh, don’t guess

If you guess that it was a tablespoon of peanut butter, you’re probably wrong, because a tablespoon of peanut butter is so small it should be illegal. Seriously—you may be going through all the right steps, but if you’re not precisely measuring, your guessing could be putting you back at maintenance calories, so you’re going through all the work of counting calories without seeing progress because you don’t weigh your food. Weighing is much more precise, so you can know you will actually be rewarded for your efforts rather than just guessing and landing back at maintenance calories or even a surplus.

Give it three weeks

There is a learning curve. Yes, it feels tedious, but after three weeks, you will get to a point where you can do it with more ease. From there, it will keep getting easier until you reach a point where it adds very little extra time to your day (it should take 10 minutes MAX…that’s not very costly for the amount of benefit you will get). The growth in the first few weeks of tracking is exponential–yes, it’s hard at first, but it gets much quicker and easier.

Pick your battles wisely

You don’t need to weigh your lettuce. You'll get more bang for your buck weighing your peanut butter, your cake, your ice cream, your lasagna, because those are higher calorie foods. But if you guesstimate a cup of lettuce and it was actually a cup and a half, it’s a very insignificant difference in calories. Weighing your tomatoes is going to add more time and effort than it’s worth. As you gain more experience, you’ll start to understand which foods are worth being more precise with because of the overall impact of getting them wrong–if you guess wrong on a few high-calorie foods throughout the day, that could put you in maintenance or a surplus. But pick your battles—some things aren’t worth the effort.

Get accountability 

If you need accountability in your weight loss journey and are looking for a personal trainer in Madison Wisconsin to help you do so, click here to view my programs, then contact me to book a free consultation.