Best way of calorie counting

[MaryIsA]

Finally admitting I need to lose 3 stone, which according to NHS means 1560 calories a day.

Found an American site with suggestions for what that means food wise but salmon tacos for breakfast...not really...

I’ve used my fitness pal in the past and found it a bit fiddly as I mostly cook from scratch. I have a Fitbit too.

Any recommendations...

Get a scale and weight things.... Also eating more or less the same thing will help you (no need to count on a daily basis as you know what you're eating)

You can create your own meal with calories on myfitnesspal. You’ll have to measure ingredients as you’re cooking. Agree with previous comment to stick to having similar meals.

I've lost a similar amount of weight through intermittent fasting usually eating between 12-6 or 12-8. Only water or black coffee
during the fasting time.

No rigid calorie counting but a focus on eating fresh food e.g. Salad with roasted chickpeas, salad and baked potato, veg omelette, homemade veg burger with sweet potato wedges, yesterday was chickpea and sweet potato curry with rice..Treats are fun sized bars and I eat a lot of protein rich Skyr yoghurt and an apple a day.

I really recommend it.

I use My Fitness Pal - I cook from scratch but I use the 'meals' function to enter the calories of one portion of a meal, then you have it on hand for every time you cook it. This works for me cause I batch cook a lot.
I've been calorie counting since the start of January and I just religiously weigh and portion things. My calorie aim is 1440 calories per day. I also do some form of exercise 5 days in 7. I lose 4kg in January so it's working...and I don't feel like I'm dieting; just being aware of what I eat.

Life Sum app is similar to My Fitness Pal.

You can input individual food items, or create entire meals/recipes, so you don't have to keep inputting individual items.

I have found that sometimes the calorie count can be slightly off, but that can be adjusted by inputting what's on the packet. Eg - Life Sum might say that 100g of something is 100 calories, but its actually 120 calories, so you'd have to adjust the actual calories in Life Sum.

Get a scale and check the packaging. If you eat mostly the same foods then after a while you get the idea and you don’t need to use it all the time.

It IS a bit fiddly if you calorie count unless you buy everything packaged and prepared. I’m using Calorie Counter which is a British app similar to My Fitness Pal. The advantage is the majority of products are known to it already. I’ve only had 1 I’ve had to input. I was always having to input items on My Fitness Pal which got a bit tedious. Like the others Calorie Counter let’s you create meals and a number of other features. Even if you “ wing it” when you’re cooking ( as I do) a lot of the ingredients are the same. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how you record it... you could write it down in a diary it’s about thinking about the food you’re eating.

If you already have a FitBit, I'd recommend using that as it'll offset the activity you do against the calories you eat.
It is a bit of a faff inputting things, especially at the start but it does record foods you eat frequently so those are quicker to input. You can also use the barcode scanner for some foods, which is so quick!

I use lose it app I add ingredients and weigh out. If you eat the same meals again you can just add it from previous saved meals. It’s a bit fiddly doing things from scratch but only the first time you add it.

I’m another one who uses my fitness pal and puts in my recipes with all the ingredients when cooking from scratch. It’s fiddly at first, but gets easier as you go along - once your frequently used recipes are in there you can just select a portion.

Nutracheck App. I changed from MFP to this app after 10 years on mfp. It's much easier to search for uk as MFP has grown so much over the years some of the suggestions don't make sense to me now. It has pictures too.

It is paid for after a week free trial either monthly or annual. I paid around 29.99 for the year I think.

You can create meals on my fitness pal. Fiddly but worth it. I find it really satisfying weighing and creating my recipe. Just make sure you follow a tutorial on how to do it "properly", saying there are 4 portions in a dish isn't accurate, you need to weigh each individual ingredient, get the weight of the whole dish then weigh your portion to get accurate information