I will bet you would be surprised to hear that one popular restaurant serves a Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta that registers in at a whopping 2,060 calories and contains 128 grams of fat; roughly 60% is saturated fat. This one meal is a least one and one-half times the calories needed for one day. Another well known eatery serves a Double Stacked Club Quesadilla weighing in at 1,860 calories, 52 grams of saturated fat, and 3,440 milligrams sodium. If you order a beer with that, you add another 150 calories. Hopefully, you will not want dessert! The point is that often we all eat far more calories in one meal than we are aware of. Unless you are a linebacker, you probably would not make these choices if you knew how many calories they contained. Without proper information about the nutritional value of the food you eat, you consume far too many calories, fat, and salt. Too many calories, overtime, equal a significant weight gain; you get fat and unhealthy and risk some serious health problems by being obese.
Research has shown that counting calories and reducing portions while balancing foods from the food pyramid is a good way to stay healthy and maintain or loose weight. Listen to your body to determine if you are really hungry or just bored or tired. Resist cravings by going for a walk or doing some activity you enjoy. But bottom line, be aware of the number of calories you actually need and how many you are taking in. Generally once you are aware of the number of calories you consume, you make better choices. However, finding out how many calories are in a food, and keeping track is just too tedious. You may start out with good intentions, but it becomes a bother and you stop.
So how can you know how many calories you eat in any given meal? One good way to track calories is to use an online calorie counter. At Calories.net, for example, you register and use their calorie counter food chart and simply enter the foods you eat. The program will find the correct calories and keep track of your daily caloric intake for you. You will know where to cut down and where to make the necessary changes for better health. An online calorie counter is a helpful tool to facilitate a healthful lifestyle.
After running a fitness site and bodybuilding forum, I see a lot of confused individuals who ask this very question below about the 5-6 meal deal. They have heard about it and want to do it but when it comes to counting calories, they are not willing to measure each grain of rice.
And can you blame them?
Many times people will ask, ?I know all that stuff like I need to eat 5-6 meal a day, eat less than your daily maintenance caloric and stuff like that... But what I do not know is how big the meal has to be??
Despite what you may have heard... eating 5-6 times a day it's not that hard. It takes some discipline but it's not all that difficult and you certainly do not eat 5-6 large, American style meals. These are small, frequent meals that comprise what is termed a complete meal (protein, carb, sometimes healthy fat).
But let me go back to the beginning to continue the story...
Here's what you do:
1- Figure out how many calories per day you need to gain/maintain/lose weight
2- Start tracking with any online nutritional tracking program.
3- Eye ball your portions. You know you had some brown rice right? Get out a cup. Look at it. If you practice this, you'll soon be able to eat, look at your place and just know.. that is about a cup of brown rice.
You don't have to physically measure your foods. I suppose you could but that wouldn't work so well when you eat out, go to a friends out and such. Who wants to carry around a complete set of measuring cups and spoons?
So you will need to look at measurement devices like a cup, a quarter cup and such and be able to eye ball things. Once you do this a few times at home, you will be able to visually look at a plate of food and roughly guess the portions. Once you know the portions...
Then you know how much you should enter into a calorie calculator tracking program.
And at the end of the day any good program will show what you ate in calories, protein, carbs and fats. And you'll be able to see this displayed in a graph so you know if your ratios are correct (assuming you are into or have any interested in ratios).
I personally don't carry around a cup or any type of measuring devices. But I know if I go out to eat that the chicken on my place is about the size of the palm of my hand.. times two...
.. the palm of my hand is roughly 3 ounces.
I can eye ball that chicken breast and guess it's about 6 maybe 7 ounces of chicken.
Are you getting my point?
Follow those steps above. Once you know how much you need to eat in terms of calories, you will be able to do whatever you want.
Then eat, and eye ball your portions. Quickly you will learn that in order to hit your daily calories, maybe you don't want to eat 2 cups of brown rice as it's too much. Or maybe not enough. But you can judge this and track it and that is how you will know.
Then track it. If you don't track what you eat, then you are only guessing. And those who guess get frustrated because those who guess do not know. That is why it's called guessing. So if you simply cannot or won't track, you'll always be frustrated and confused. Unless of course, you track it for the first day and forever on, eat the same portions and foods. Yuck!
The biggest mistake I see people making is:
1- They have not ever figured out the math to calculate their calories 2- They do not track what they eat 3- So they just do whatever and get whatever
If you follow the above three steps, you are almost guaranteed not to make the same mistakes that most other people make when it comes to reaching their fitness goals.
Both Grojan Fabiola & are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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