Fad diets come and go, but the weight loss strategy that continues to work for many dieters involves tracking and managing how many calories you consume. To do this, you must know how many calories are in the food that you eat.
Nutrition Labels
Frozen, prepared and packaged foods have nutrition labels that describe the caloric content for one serving. Read the label carefully. Serving sizes on labels may vary from your own. For example, a serving size of potato chips as indicated on the package label usually amounts to about 10 chips, far fewer than the typical consumer consumes.
Online Calculators
For fresh foods and whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, poultry, fish and meats, use an online calculator, such as those found at Calorie Count or Calorie King. At these sites, you can generate estimates of the number of calories per serving for just about any food.
Recipes
Many recipes provide calorie estimates for single servings. For simple food combos, like a sandwich, you can read product labels and then do the math in your head or on a calculator.
Measuring Your Food Portions
Estimating calories per portion won’t do much good if you don’t know how much food is in your portion. Many who struggle with weight problems tend to distort serving sizes. Use measuring cups to measure a reasonable serving size.
Member Comments