Although I believe that not every case of controlling your menu in terms of calorie and macronutrient is good, I have to admit that this is one of the better ways to see if our diet really is "healthy" and "right" as it looks like. Controlling your calorie intake and calculating your daily serving of macronutrients is a way to help you achieve your goals and shape your body quickly. The problem is only that a very large number of people are doing it inadequately or too rigorously, pushing themselves into eating disorders. If you want to play with the calorie counting, you have to go for it. This is the first rule that I will always promote. And now to the point!
Calories - what is it, and what is caloric balance
Each of us has our own caloric needs. This is the number of calories we have to eat in order to provide the body with energy for proper functioning. The demand is conditioned by weight, height, age, physical activity, and some diseases or our past - for example retired athletes have different needs than normal people, even if their training is the same right now.
Counting calories - how to do it?
We already know that adjusting the calorie counts to our goal can help us achieve a good figure. But how to count calories and not go crazy? After all, calculating each bite every day and counting that we’re certainly not exceeded the limit, can lead to insanity!
But there is a way. As always
Keep Calm!
Hold on to a certain number - for example 1659.5 calories, 54.35 grams of fat, 109.5 grams of protein - is a straightforward way to go crazy, resign, or get sick. If you want to count, you must first relax and remember that 100 calories or 10 grams in one way or the other is not enough to change anything. Then it gets better. Sometimes it happens that we eat carbohydrates all day ... does that mean we have to shed tears? No!
The next day we just make meal plans so that there are a little less of them. Problem solved. Our body does not function as we do: there is no such thing as after midnight balance of calories and macros "reset". It’s worth remembering and not be fooled. One day did not go well? It will go better next time. And that's it.
Get helpful equipment
Once a card and a pen had to be enough, today there is no need. You do not have to go through the calorie table looking for some value ... sometimes it's just the weight.
I've been testing REDMOND SkyScales 741S-E for some time now - a Bluetooth scale that not only weighs in with the product, but if you connect it to an app on your phone - shows how much calories, carbohydrates, proteins and fats the product contains.
It's a huge relief for me, because believe me - I did not like math in school, and more so in my spare time, if 100 grams of something had 55 calories, how much would I eat if I ate 150 grams and so on. The scale does it for me.
I put the dish on the scale, I will reset it with a button and put the product on. At the same time, I turn on the app on the phone, I choose from the list specifically what I am weighting - in this case it is an apple - and I approve. The app calculates how many calories is in the apple of that particular weight and what is the BTW distribution for me.
I can weigh more products and add more. Goodbye calculators! Goodbye web-based applications, for which I had to enter specific weights and find the right products!
The scale is also useful to me when writing down recipes. By weighting ingredients on the cake I immediately add them in the application, so that simultaneously with baking into the oven I already know how many calories the tray has. This way, I can easily divide the cake into pieces and calculate how many kcal one piece has.
REDMOND SkyScales 741S-E is a must have for anyone who counts calories and macros, or control their food from time to time. I can no longer imagine returning to the arduous counting on the calculator or typing something into an application on the phone or computer. I do not waste my time looking for anything but calories, just weight, eating and that’s it.
The scale has one more advantage - it's just very nice and looks great on the kitchen counter.
Plan your meals
If you have calorie counting problems and often do not follow the guidelines - start planning your meals the day before. It would be better to prepare them the night before, but I know that many people have lack the time to do that. So, sit down for 5 minutes each day with a card and plan what you want to eat, taking into account the portion size - so you'll know how much to put on your plate to not exceed your limit again.
If you want counting calories to make sense, always start counting before eating - not after a meal.
Quality of calories
Remember that the fact that something does not contain calories or has very little of them does not immediately mean that it’s healthy. Quite the opposite. Very often low calorie products are loaded with sweeteners - and not the healthy ones - which are doubtful and even negatively (researchers' opinions are divided) affect our health (may be carcinogenic).
Sometimes it is better to eat a large spoon of caloric but healthy peanut butter than a whole pack of diet pseudo-cookies packed with chemicals and suspicious ingredients.
Healthy snacks
Sometimes it seems to us that we eat healthily and properly throughout the day, but the effects are still not there. We stick to a set number of calories ... and nothing changes. Before you start to panic and go on a hunger strike, do a little investigation: do you not eat between meals because "a handful doesn’t count"? Do you include sweetened drinks or sugared coffee to your balance? Do you remember to count what you eat after dinner? Are you sure your serving was as small as it should?
How to count calories - summarization
We often justify our behaviour and turn our eyes to our "antics". As long as I think that chill is as important as common sense, then in the absence of effects one should start by reflecting on themselves rather than on a particular diet plan or exercise. Very often it turns out that just our snacking is raising our balance so much that it effectively sabotages our efforts for a better figure.
