Time - how to calorie count

[Chestnut21]

I have a very busy home/work/mum life. I cook from scratch for a large family. How do people find the time to write down their calorie intake? It take a very long time to input every ingredients ?? Surly this is not sustainable?

[silly-socks 1kg]

Apps like MyFitnessPal really help save time in the long term, although it is a bit time-consuming for the first couple of weeks. I still sometimes resent the time it takes but without it I'll just eat and eat...

I like to cook from scratch too, trying new recipes but mostly cooking from a standard rotation of old favourites. I've saved all these standard recipes in the app, so I can add them easily with a couple of clicks. The app also suggests your recently consumed foods for each meal, which saves time when completing your diary. I like to add my foods for the day while I wake up with my first cup of tea, it discourages me from having extra snacks because I don't want the effort of going back and adding more to my diary!

Granted, I don't have kids so I can imagine it's really tough to find time! I hope you can find something that works for you!

[Chestnut21 in reply to silly-socks]

Thanks Silly-Socks, it's nice to hear that there is not an easy way and I am not the only one who resents the loss of time doing it. I am just going to have to suck it up and also maybe look for some recipes with less ingredients (just to begin with) 😀

[Lytham 3 stone]

Hello and welcome, would you like to join our weigh in today? Here's the link, hope to see you there! x

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

[Chestnut21 in reply to Lytham]

Thanks for the invite, but I have decided to weigh myself monthly for my mental health otherwise I get obsessed with the scales (which can spiral me into depression and bad eating habits) so I am trying the eat healthy and do the C25K programme and gauge my mental wellbeing rather than scale numbers e.g if I feel good then I am healthy/happy.

But the monthly weigh in could tip me over - let's see 😬

[Lytham 3 stone in reply to Chestnut21]

Ha ha ! Good luck, you know where we are if you change your mind! x

[Hidden]

I’m really busy. Cook from scratch & can never be bothered with writing things down & counting & calculating. So I follow low carb high fat where you just eat good food, listen to your hunger, & don’t eat beyond it.

[Food4Fuel 7lbs]

I do it the old fashioned way. I menu plan once a week before I do my food shop. I get calorie counts from online recipes or other websites. I keep a list of calories for things I eat regularly - for example my breakfast is nearly always the same, I drink a similar amount of hot drinks per day so milk for that gets added in automatically. It takes a while at first but will get quicker as I go along I hope....

It’s more of a challenge cooking for a large family though I admit! All the best with your plan 😊

[moreless Administrator 7 stone]

Hi and welcome, Chestnut21

I never liked the idea of calorie counting either, so chose a different method to lose 7 stone without messing about, but others find calorie counting easy and important to them. Have a look at this if you wish to try my method phcuk.org/wp-content/upload...

All of the information you need about the forum can be found in Pinned Posts healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh... and I hope you'll be joining all the Events, Challenges and Clubs that we run, especially a weigh-in and the daily diary.

We've found active participation to be key to successful weight loss and, of course, it's a good way to get to know people, find inspiration and share support and encouragement.

Wishing you all the best

[Food4Fuel 7lbs]

Also should add: BBC food have a good variety of recipes in their diet section - bbc.co.uk/food/diets

If you go to the low calorie section they have recipes divided up - 400 cal meals, 500 cal meals. It’s really useful and helps me when I’m a bit uninspired! And calorie counting is done for you 😊

[Hidden]

Hi

I have created a log and emailed it to my self on my phone. Hopefully this will make it easier to record

Will let you know if it works. Good luck

[Subtle_badger]

I think calorie counting is very onerous. I am single and tried it when I wasn't working, and it was hard work. Too much hard work. I also did not lose any weight. I ended up talking to nutritionist for the app I was using, and got told I must be missing cooking fat calories (I wasn't). As usual, it's not the paradigm that is wrong, blame the victim - even though it eventually fails for almost everyone. It was frustrating, and I realised that if it took this much work just to not gain weight, it could not work in the long term. I could not devote that much time to weighing my food and scanning barcodes.

Also squirrels and badgers don't need to obsessively count calories to avoid being obese. Nor did I, when I was younger. Nor did most of humanity for most of his story.

There is something fundamentally broken about the whole approach.

/rant