Counting calories is one method to losing, maintaining or gaining weight. It can be cumbersome at times but if you are consistent and stick to your requirements it is a sure-fire way to meet your goals. Healthy weight loss should be at a rate of about a pound or two a week. Try to cut excess calories each day and burn calories through physical activity to lose weight. Make sure you are not eating too many calories if you want to maintain your current weight. If you want to gain weight, incorporate more calories to your daily intake.
Step 1
Figure out your daily caloric needs. This number varies greatly between different people. See a doctor or nutritionist to help you figure out how many calories you should eat each day. Most women need about 2,000 calories each day and men need 2,500 to maintain their current weight. Eat less than you need in order to lose weight. Your caloric needs will vary depending on your age, height, weight, sex, genetics and physical activity level. If you begin to track how many calories you eat each day and would like to lose weight, begin to gradually decrease the amount of calories you consume until you achieve weight loss. Never consume less than 1,200 calories a day, because that is how much your body needs to function properly. It is also important to remember if you burn more calories through physical exercise, you will lose more weight than by cutting calories through food alone.
Step 2
Find out how many calories are in each food. Look for food labels, ask the restaurant, get a calorie guide book that list how many calories are in common foods. There are many websites that allow you to enter in foods and portion sizes to tell you how many calories were in the food.
Step 3
Record your calories and food eaten in a journal that you carry with you. If you eat something when you are out and cannot find the caloric information, you can fill in the calories when you get home after searching it on the Internet. At the end of every day, total your calories to see if you met your goals. You can also review the journal throughout the day to see how many calories you have left in your allotment to help you make food choices. Recording food, in addition to calories, is important when reviewing your journal. You can see if you ate a lot of junk or high-calorie foods you may still be hungry at the end of the day even though you met caloric needs as opposed to a day where you ate a lot of fruits, vegetables and whole grains and felt satisfied. This will help you begin to make better food choices.
Step 4
Avoid foods for which you can't easily find the calorie count. If you are out and cannot find nutritional information and cannot determine the serving size of a food it may be difficult to figure out how many calories you would consume by eating it. Try to choose a different food that you can track more easily.
Step 5
Consider meal delivery plans or pre-packaged food. This is the easiest way to count calories for a busy person or someone who doesn't want to deal with counting calories. For many meal delivery plans, you can chose how many calories you want sent to your home each day so you have nothing to worry about. If you chose to go to the store and buy pre-packaged meals that equal the calories you want to consume each day you won't have to count calories throughout the day. Just be sure to only eat what you predetermine your rations should be.
Things You'll Need
- Journal
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