Counting Calories

[lorabeth 10]

How do you count your total calories for the day?

Do you count the food and subtract the calories burned from exercise for the total for the day? Or do you just count the food and not factor in the exercise?

Also what range to do you try to aim for?

My doctor said 1200. Just wondering what everyone else is doing? I did not think of asking if she wanted it before or after exercise.

[NWgirl 574]

I would personally have a set amount per day, no matter what exercise you do. I have heard of people giving themselves allowances for the exercise calories, so instead of eating 1000, they eat 1300 because they burned 300.

[Ladybug28 73]

I have an app on my phone that I love! It's called lose it. It does all the counting for you. You can scan your foods and it will come up and enter everything. You can record your weight, if you want to keep track of your Protein and carbs you can do that....it's great!! You can use on both android and iPhones. It's also online too. It's very handy especally when out and about. Check it out. Deb

[xavier 153]

I eat about 1000 to1100 a day and maintain my weight easily without exercise or any diet foods or even counting calories. The only way I know how many calories I eat is I recently did a couple of days of logging my food because a lot of people have asked me.I would never subtract the calories burned during exercise , just do a moderate amount of exercise you can live with every day for the rest of your life and forget the calories!

This whole band thing is for the rest of our lives and all the dieting and calorie counting and logging exercise and all that to me seems unlikely to be something most of us can do for life...this is not a race but a new lifestyle.

[mrsclooney918 47]

How do you count your total calories for the day?

Do you count the food and subtract the calories burned from exercise for the total for the day? Or do you just count the food and not factor in the exercise?

Also what range to do you try to aim for?

My doctor said 1200. Just wondering what everyone else is doing? I did not think of asking if she wanted it before or after exercise.

Here's the thing for me about this.

I thought I was soooooo smart because I was exercising that I was "banking" these calories that I could eat. And sometimes I would eat them before I banked them. My justification was that I didn't want to go into starvation mode. Bad bad bad idea.

My nutritionist explained to me that the amount of exercising i was doing (about an hour per session on top of just trying to move more) would not put me into starvation mode so eating the extra calories was counter productive. If I had been doing 2 hours of hard exercising (you know, like plowing a field like they did in Laura Ingalls Wilder days) then I would be at risk and should eat more.

So now I am back to sticking with the 1000-1300 per day with or without exercise. I am definitely in my slow down so I am losing about 1/2 to 1 lb per week. And I'm good with that now that I have a better understanding of how my body uses calories.

[DELETE THIS ACCOUNT! 12,703]

I also use the Android "Lose It" app to keep track of calories. It's so handy, I don't know what I'd do without it.

I eat 1000 calories a day.

[tsteves1 14]

How do you know how many calories you should be eating each day? Just ask your Doc? Does it change with the band or could I just look it up online to see what someone my height and weight should be eating to lose weight. Me and my Dr haven't discussed it yet because I am not supposed to be focused on losing yet, just healing. We discuss it when I go in for my first fill on 4/3. I think lately I have been eating about 900 a day because I am on mushies and not very good at getting too many calories in.

[judych 225]

I eat about 1000 to1100 a day and maintain my weight easily without exercise or any diet foods or even counting calories. The only way I know how many calories I eat is I recently did a couple of days of logging my food because a lot of people have asked me.I would never subtract the calories burned during exercise , just do a moderate amount of exercise you can live with every day for the rest of your life and forget the calories!

This whole band thing is for the rest of our lives and all the dieting and calorie counting and logging exercise and all that to me seems unlikely to be something most of us can do for life...this is not a race but a new lifestyle.

..and this is the combination that i want/need. if its too complicated im headed for disaster. i just want to be able to have the right amount of food without weight stall or gain. Exercise?? im hoping that later on i can do some significant exercise but at the moment im not very dependant on it. i have to have some improvement in joint/feet function first. im so glad that i have a nutritionalist on board now. i see her on the 4th April. I will have to take into consideration that im taking barley green. Incidentally, barley green is more potent as a safe guard against losing hair and nails.

[B-52 7,113]

In the beginning I counted calories, etc. That's all one can do at that point.

After I got some real restriction, and consistent in the Green Zone, all that changed.

Being in the green zone means that 1), my hunger-cravings are under control, and 2), the amount I can eat is very restricted-portion control.

So since eat so little and much less often, all I need to do is choose the correct foods. And by now, I don't need to be a rocket scientist to know wat is good to eat and what to avoid.

This is the easiest weight loss program I ave ever been on!

[vlp1968 83]

I journaled when I was first banded, logging my food, calories and protien. I knew I was eating low fat/low carb so didn't bother counting them. I ate about 1000 cals a day. I got into a routien and stopped logging. It felt too restrictive.

A little over 2 years later, and a regain of 30ish pounds I stated logging again. This time eating moderate carbs and moderate fat. I also am eating more calories, around 1200. I realized I was not eating in a way I could maintain when I intially lost all the weight. So far so good, I am excercising a lot and eating on my plan for the most part. Lost 3 pounds last week and weigh in tomorrow. I have high hopes as it's been a really good week.

[neekoal 37]

If you have an iPhone a good app for this is Myfitnesspal, you can also get buddies with this app and encourage eachother (it doesn't tell your buddy your weight just if you are logging and losing).

[morelgirl 177]

I use MyFitnessPal, too. I have it on my iPad and my iPhone and it automatically syncs the information I enter in one device to the other, so I never have to worry about keeping track. When you set up an MFP account, you enter your weight, height, age, activity level and whether you want to lose 0.5, 1, 1.5, or 2 lbs per week. Then it automatically calculates your calories and nutritional needs for each day (I find the calorie level too high, so I adjust accordingly). I originally started using it to track my grams of Protein, since I had trouble keeping track of those. My nutritionist wants me eating 50-60 grams or more per day. MFP recommends about 55, so that works well for me. The program has a huge database of food already in there, so you just type in what you ate, and it calculates the calories and nutritional info for you and keeps a running tally. I LOVE it. It's my favorite toy.

I use all the MFP info and just set my own calorie level, which I put at about 1000. I have found, though, after years of dieting and about 6 weeks of being banded, that I lose better when I vary my calories a bit. Some days I only eat 850 and some days I eat up to 1200 (once in a great while I eat 1300-1400, but generally I regret it and I might gain a few ounces the next day), but when MFP sums up my eating at the end of the week, I average around 1000/day and this seems to be working for me for slow, steady weight loss.

Best of luck!

[neekoal 37]

I use MyFitnessPal, too. I have it on my iPad and my iPhone and it automatically syncs the information I enter in one device to the other, so I never have to worry about keeping track. When you set up an MFP account, you enter your weight, height, age, activity level and whether you want to lose 0.5, 1, 1.5, or 2 lbs per week. Then it automatically calculates your calories and nutritional needs for each day (I find the calorie level too high, so I adjust accordingly). I originally started using it to track my grams of Protein, since I had trouble keeping track of those. My nutritionist wants me eating 50-60 grams or more per day. MFP recommends about 55, so that works well for me. The program has a huge database of food already in there, so you just type in what you ate, and it calculates the calories and nutritional info for you and keeps a running tally. I LOVE it. It's my favorite toy.

I use all the MFP info and just set my own calorie level, which I put at about 1000. I have found, though, after years of dieting and about 6 weeks of being banded, that I lose better when I vary my calories a bit. Some days I only eat 850 and some days I eat up to 1200 (once in a great while I eat 1300-1400, but generally I regret it and I might gain a few ounces the next day), but when MFP sums up my eating at the end of the week, I average around 1000/day and this seems to be working for me for slow, steady weight loss.

Best of luck!

If you want to add me my user name is Neekoal on there too

[Kate rules 43]

Yup, my fitness pal is my new best friend. It helped me out of a difficult spot in my weight loss. 1200 calories per day. But I will warn you if the GIGO effect: garbage in, garbage out. The app will only be as accurate as the data you enter. So be honest with yourself. I had a major slip up one day where I had 2500 calories. But I used to eat more than that every day and never thought twice. This app will help you be accountable to yourself. If it only included a cattle prod to get me off my rear end to exercise more. Maybe available on the paid version. LOL

[readytogoforit 172]

be safe count calories. we have been eating whatever, whenever, without any accountability to anyone or anything for a long time. After you get to goal, that is a different thing.

At this point, I measure and weigh my food.