This is part 2 of the “3 part calorie counting series”
Having covered why to count calories, the next logical step is how to count calories.
Most people would shudder at the prospect of having to count every single calorie. However, as mentioned before, there are no true values that can be assigned the innate randomness of the calorie content of food. Hence, all values are ESTIMATES. But we need to count calories so that we can get within shooting distance (say within 10%) of true values.
This is a simple and pretty straightforward process which only involves two cases and fundamentally reduces down to one method.
The first case is with food items with the nutrition labels. Such an example is:
From this label, a 30 gram serving will give me 114 calories with 24.4g protein. Let’s just round that up to 120 calories since I’d rather overestimate my intake (especially if you’re on a diet.
Key notes: Always check for the serving size and always in a unit of WEIGHT (grams, ounces)
Sometimes you will see measurements in cups/ml/etc or others. These are measures of volume, not weight, and are thus irrelevant.
Image Credit: tsw2002
With the example given on the left, the serving size is given as 1/2 cup and 51.0g. Ignore the half cup value. The simple reason is that sometimes we are less accurate in measuring our foods, and very often there is a huge uncertainty. The simple exercise is to measure out the food using a measuring cup and then weighing it, if it tallies, then great. Then try using a different measuring cup, or perhaps two 1/4 cups instead of one 1/2 cup. Compare the results and pray that their the same. Very often, they won’t give you 51 grams.
The next group would be foods that have no labels. Such examples include fresh meat, fruits and vegetables, and many many others. For these, you can get nutrion tables such as the ones found on the Australia, New Zealand Food Standards website. Specifically, you can download a full list of foods and their caloric values from the above website with this link.
Note that these tables typically show the nutritional data per 100g of the edible portion of the food.
You can then measure out a specific portion of the food (by weight) and then compare it to the values given on the tables to give you the calories you are consuming.
Another Key Note: The values that you see on the these labels in this post are given in calories. Sometimes you will find the energy value of the food written in a unit called kilojoules, or “kJ”, as it is in the tables presented on NUTTAB. It is a simple conversion, 1 calorie equals 4.2kJ. So to find calories from kilojoules, simply divide by 4.2.
So the basic principle is this: Know the nutritional value of the food per unit WEIGHT. Weigh your foods, and then compare the value.
The last thing is that, you obviously need a weighing scale. I bet most people will have a weighing scale, but if you don’t have one, you can easily find one anywhere. They range from expensive scales like this:
click to link to sales page
Which costs US$169.
Or my cheap scale:
Which cost me AU$6.
Here’s a quick Example of how to count calories:
I buy oranges from the farmer’s market. I decide that I want to know how many calories are in the oranges.
Hence, I peel the oranges and then weigh them.
They weigh 70g , hence checking my tables:
They contain a total of 0.7 x 180/4.2 = 30 calories. I multiplied by 0.7 since the table gives values per 100g of food and then divided the energy value in kJ by 4.2, which is (180 x 0.7) kJ divided by 4.2 to give 30 calories.
Final Key Note: Always weight out every food item RAW. Once you cook say, potatoes or chicken, it loses a substantial amount of water. Problem is, depending on the cooking method and the time of cooking, the food item loses a different amount of water for every occasion in which you cook it. The only consistent measurement is thus RAW. And yes, we now its a pain to weight raw meat.
But Here’s the Good News
By counting calories often, one will usually get the knack of eyeballing your food. Say after measuring out the calories of oranges or chicken for 2-3 weeks, you realise that if you tried to simply eyeball and pick say 200g of meat, you will be within shooting distance of the actual weight. You can probably quite easily look at an orange, and from your vast knowledge of caloric values, estimate it to be about 100 calories.
So in the end, counting calories is a means to an end, and we don’t need to overly stress over it. The Caveat is that you can VERY EASILY turn counting calories into a source of stress, however, it need not be and the rewards can be reaped without obsessing over whether you ate exactly 140.5 calories from 112.35g of meat.
I’d rather say I probably ate about 140 calories in about 100g of meat, rounding off to the nearest 10s or even more.
So that’s it for counting the cals. Know what you’re eating, and achieve your goals!
In the last part, you can see how good you are at estimating caloric content…
Related posts:
- Why Count Calories This is part 1 of the “3 part calorie counting...
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- How much are you eating? This is part 3 of the “3 part calorie counting...
- The 3 part Counting Calories Series The aim of this series is to address possible questions...
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