Being fit and healthy is an important goal for many. Thus, to achieve this goal, many employ various techniques to help them along the way.
Some try to eat healthier, while others eat less. Some start to hit the gym, while others take weight loss supplements.
Either way, many people rise to the challenge to achieve their goals. In fact, one popular technique employed by many to lose weight and become healthier is tracking calories.
Tracking Calories Tips
It may seem hard at first, but with these tips, you will be able to track your calories with no problem. Here are 25 tips to help you track calories easier to get over the hump of tracking calories!
1. Download A Calorie Tracking App
For those of you who track your calories via pen and paper, you may be happy to know tracking calories is a lot easier with apps like My Fitness Pal and Fooducate.
2. Get In The Habit of Measuring Your Ingredients
Measuring your ingredients will help you track your calories accurately.
3. Ensure The App You Are Using Will Remember Your Past Entries
A calorie tracking app with your history of entries will make it easier for you to fill out your tracker when you’re putting in foods that you eat frequently.
4. Create Recipes In Your Calorie Tracking App
Instead of putting in one ingredient at a time, you can create the recipe in the app to make things more convenient. Also, don’t forget to put the serving size for that recipe.
5. Eat Your Meals Based On The Serving Size
When you eat your meals based on the serving size, you will not have to do a lot of math to figure out the exact amount of calories that meal contained.
6. Use Alternative Food Brands To Track Calories
Whenever I have trouble finding the brand for the ingredient that I’m using, I would look at the nutrient label and get the closest thing to that for that specific ingredient.
7. Meal Prep And Fill Your Tracker With Those Foods
When you have an idea of what you are going to eat for the week, it makes it easy to fill out your calorie tracker all at once for that week.
8. Use The Calorie Tracker To Audit Your Eating Routine
Use the calorie tracker as an opportunity to figure out what you should and shouldn’t eat.
9. Don’t Under Eat Just Because You Are Tracking Your Calories
It’s good to not go over your calories range, but that doesn’t mean to starve yourself either.
10. Don’t Forget To Track Your Cheat Meals
As painful as it may be, you have to be accountable for every meal that you eat.
11. Don’t Cheat Yourself
You have to be accountable for every meal. If you don’t put your meal into the calorie tracker, then you are only hurting yourself.
12. Fill Out Your Tracker When You Have Some Down-Time
Putting what you eat in your calorie tracker is not difficult, but it sure does feel that way when you have a hundred other things that you have to get done.
The best time to fill your tracker is while you’re cooking or when you’re getting ready to eat something that is already prepared, but if you miss that window, then filling your calorie tracker when you’re not busy is the next best thing.
13. Don’t Slack Off
Slacking off may not seem like a big deal at first, but gradually you’re creating a bad habit that will worsen over time.
14. Don’t Forget To Track Your Water intake
Drinking the right amount of water is important for losing weight and staying healthy.
15. Don’t Forget To Keep Up With Your Other Nutrients
Keeping track of your calories is cool, but keeping track of your sugar, sodium, fats, carbs, etc. is even better.
16. Monitor Your Food Consumption
You can meet all of your goals in the calorie tracker, but if the only foods you’re eating are processed and junk food, then you are still eating unhealthy.
Therefore, just because you are meeting your nutrition goal doesn’t mean the foods you are eating are healthy.
17. Track Your Beverages
Just because you can drink it doesn’t mean that drink has zero calories, in fact, most juices and sodas have a ton of calories and sugar.
18. Eat Your Entire Meal
Eating your entire meal will make it easier to keep track of everything accurately. If you don’t finish your meal, what you can do is weigh your remaining food and subtract that from the total weight and divide that based on serving size.
Of course, keep in mind that weighing food is effective for foods that base serving sizes on ounces, grams, pounds and any other unit that is weight-related.
19. Fill Out Your Tracker While You Are Cooking
It is great to have the recipe of your meal in the app already, but if not, then I suggest filling out the calorie tracker while you are cooking so that you don’t forget to include any ingredients.
20. It Helps to Keep Your Meals Simple
The fewer ingredients in a meal, the easier it is to put in your calorie tracker.
21. Track All Meals When You Can
Sometimes you can go to a local restaurant that isn’t well known outside your area. If you’re tracking everything, then it would be good to check to see if the food you want from that restaurant is in your app’s database and go from there.
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22. Continue To Workout
Tracking your calories is not an excuse to not work out. In fact, working out while tracking your calories can help you get results quicker.
23. Have Someone To Keep You Accountable
Sometimes we lack the motivation needed to fulfill our goals for the day. That is why it is good to have someone to make sure that you are accountable for your action, and in this case, they will make sure that you are consistent with tracking your calories.
24. Don’t Look At This As A Diet Instead, Look At This As A Lifestyle
Diets come and go. Usually, you lose the weight just to gain it back later down the road. Look at tracking your calories as a lifestyle and not a diet because if you stop tracking your calories once you reach your goals then you will slowly convert back to your bad habits.
Also, tracking your calories have more benefits than just losing weight, it is also good for staying healthy and keeping yourself accountable with what you feed your body.
25. Finally, Don’t Beat Yourself Up For Going Over Your Calories
If you go over your calories, always remember that it is not the end of the world. Analyze what you need to work on and move forward with a positive spirit.
