Determining your body's caloric intake gives you potent information to adjust your eating habits to lose or gain weight. Once you have a clear understanding of how many calories you consume, you can then add or subtract calories to influence your body weight. You need to create a deficit of 500 to 1000 calories from your caloric intake through diet and exercise if you want to lose weight.
Step 1
Find a food journal that is appropriate to your needs. If you only intend on tracking calories, a simple notebook should be fine. There are also online food journals that can be used to track your caloric intake.
Step 2
Measure your food before you consume it. Weigh, measure, or count any food that is not packaged in a single serving.
Step 3
Write down the foods and quantities you have consumed in your food journal. You can also include mood and time of day in your food journal to help you identify any eating patterns.
Step 4
Calculate the appropriate calorie value for each food with a nutritional label. Make sure the serving size on the label and the amount you consumed matches, then note the amount of calories stated on the label. If you only consumed multiple servings or only part of a serving, make the necessary adjustments to your notation.
Step 5
Calculate how many calories unlabeled foods contain. Purchase a calorie guide book that contains the calorie content of common foods or use online sources to find out the calorie content of the foods you eat. An online food journal may offer suggestions for the calorie content of common foods.
Step 6
Add together the calorie content for all of the foods you have consumed for the day. Online food journals often complete this step automatically. The sum of those numbers is your body's caloric intake for the day.
Tips and Warnings
- Estimate the amount of food you are served when eating out, paying particular attention to serving sizes. Once you are at home, you can look for nutritional information on the restaurants website, or use your estimates to make a rough guess to determine the calories consumed.
- Women should consume at least 1200 calories per day while men should consume at least 1500 calories per day. Do not eat less than these amounts unless you are under the supervision of a medical professional.
Things You'll Need
- Food journal
- Food scale
- Measuring cups
- Calorie guide
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