Calories counting is probably the best way to start your weight loss. This quick article will give you some starters on how to start losing weight by calories counting. If you are serious about losing weight then I would suggest that you keep a food journal to keep track of daily intake.

Food journal

Logging your food consumption is very important if you want get a truthful insight into your eating habits. Start off simple by just using a notepad to track your food consumption. Keeping track gives you a way of finding where your bad habits lie so you can work on getting rid of them e.g. I always have a chocolate as an afternoon snack. You don’t need to over complicate things. Get a notepad and make a simple table that can log what you ate, what time you ate it and how many calories it had. It’s as simple as that.

Calorie counter

To find caloric value of food you should use calorie counters, there are free ones on the net and you can also buy a printed version. There are a few websites that even have meal planning tools.

Some foods like vegetables, meats and fruit may not have the calorie information on them so in these cases the calorie counter comes in handy. A lot of popular restaurant will have calorie info on their menu on their websites, check it out and use it to keep track of what you eat when you go out. Remember that all foods have energy and if you eat too much of it it is likely to end up as fat on your body. You want to try and eat healthy foods but remember that even healthy foods like nuts are very high in calories so keep track of how much you eat. Try to avoid consuming calories via beverages like sodas and coffees. If you must drink soda then have the occasional diet soda.

Eating out

Restaurants are changing their menus to cater for the health aware customers who want low calorie tasty foods, take advantage of this. Even junk foods places like McDonald’s sell salads and fruit so even if you’re dragged there when you’re with friends you have some options.

Low calorie snacks

When buying snacks get the ones that are packed into small 100 to 200 calorie portions. This way you know what to take and there is less chance of you accidentally eating too much. If you need to, prepare your own portions into some sandwich bags or Tupperware and have enough ready to last a few days. Be careful that you don’t get tempted into grabbing a few bags and gorging on them. Treat cookies, cakes and chips as treats and only have 1 or 2 portions a day max.

Gorging

Some people think it’s OK to save your calories and then binge on a 1500 calorie fast food meal at the end of the day. First of all, you won’t get all the nutrients you need and secondly, consuming that many calories at once will cause an insulin spike resulting in a lot of that meal being stored as fat because the body never needs that much food at once. Eat foods that have a high quantity of nutrients in them like vegetables and fish. Try to eat as much natural foods as possible and you’ll find that you end up eating a lot of low calorie, high nutrient content foods.

Logging your food intake is a simple but effective way to see what you eat and start losing weight. By logging you food intake you can watch what good and bad habits you have when it comes to food, you can also start seeing patterns E.g. I lost more weight last week when I was eating more vegetables and less snacks.