Novice slimmer

[Les2]

Hi

Old guy here. I am trying to figure out the way to tally my daily food intake. When I retired, I stopped smoking, became much less active and am nowa lot heavier. I am now attempting to 'count the calories', just to keep an eye on things.
So, I started a list of the foods I eat and the calories of each. I made quite a long list of the food along with what I thought were the calories for each. I am now thinking that the numbers I found on ALL the products being kcals and not calories, I must be off on the wrong track as a kcal is 1000 calories. This means I am eating thousands of calories when I thought my 1900kcal to 2300kcal per day was reasonable.
Have I taken a wrong turning here? Why do manufacturers use kcal and not calories?

By the way, I am not a Mum!

I don’t suppose anyone would think you’re a mum given you’re a man
In reply to your question I have no useful information but if you download an app it might help. I use MyFitnessPal it’s free and quite good. Also I got some smart scales which have really given me an incentive to start looking after myself more. They tell you how much fat/muscle and water is in your body along with other helpful info.
Good luck!

Are you getting confused between kJ and kcal? Packets show both but you should be looking at the kcal amount as that’s the figure for your calorie ‘allowance’.

Thanks, I may do that at some point but at the moment I am just tinkering atound the edges.

So for example, let’s say you have 2000 calories to eat in a day as your allowance.

You want some rice. Pictured is the packet. The figure you want is the kcal amount: 133kcals per 100g. If you ate 200g that’s 266 cals, which you then take off your 2000 to give you 1734 remaining.

The kJ amount is kilojoules and is just another way of measuring energy in food, but it’s not the number of calories in it. The k in kcals is a scientific distinction between small and large calories and not one you need to worry about.

Your 2000 calories you need a day is 2000kcals.

Sorry, pic attached

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
I did see the KJ figures, but I have been using the kcal values in my list. I uses those numbers when I see such things as 'daily allowance = 2100 calories' - so I figured my average of a little over 2000kcals fitted in to that sort of figures. THEN, I read that 1kcal is in fact 1000 calories? So, you can see my confusion.

Ah I see. One calorie is one kcal when talking about food intake, nutrition etc.

If you’re interested in the scientific explanation it’s here!

Experts created the term kilocalorie to avoid confusion between large and small calories. The prefix “kilo,” meaning 1,000, refers to a large calorie.
However, the term small calorie is rarely used today outside of physics and chemistry research. A small calorie is such a small unit of energy that it doesn’t really pertain much to our daily lives. Because of this, we’ve come to use the word “calorie” to mean a large calorie or kilocalorie.
In everyday language, the terms “calories” (capitalized or not) and “kcal” are used interchangeably and refer to the same amount of energy in relation to food or energy burned with exercise.
Therefore, you don’t need to convert them, as 1 kcal equals 1 calorie in general nutrition terms

Hi
Thanks to all. I can't keep up. It seems I am actually doing my counting correctly as mentioned above by doodleschnoodle "Your 2000 calories you need a day is 2000kcals." That clears it all up for me. I new I chose he right forum for this topic :)
Now, where is the ice cream (I wish)

Good luck!