How To Track Your Calories & Tips For Beginners

[00:00] The solution for losing, gaining, and even maintaining weight can all be found. Right in this thing nowadays, this is one of the best habits you can learn, one of the

[00:12] easiest. Today I'm going to try to simplify how to track your calories as much as possible. So let's just jump right into it. To start, you need to know how many calories you need to eat, and there's a million ways

[00:26] to figure this out online now. I'll post a link below to a couple of my favorite resources. Now if you find you use one of these resources and you're not seeing any progress after a couple weeks, you probably need to modify your intake a bit.

[00:40] Everyone is different. In part of being successful in this game of health and fitness, it's being able to learn and listen to your body. My experience, most of these estimators are fairly accurate, as long as you're honest with them. Alright, you figured out how many calories you need to eat to reach your goals.

[00:55] Next, you'll need to find a way to track those without carrying around a notebook and doing math all day. Unless, of course, you don't mind being a food accountant. There's my two favorite methods. Number one, using a calorie tracker.

[01:07] With today's technology, this is without question the easiest and quickest way. All in the palm of your hand, or on your computer, for some reason you don't have a smartphone.

[01:19] As long as you can browse the website or download an app, it'll be well in your way to success. There's more than a handful, and by handful, I mean thousands of great sites, but I'm a big fan of my fitness pal, and have been using it for years.

[01:31] So we'll use that as my example. What you do to track your calories on here is simply add the food that you eat as you eat it, or really whenever, just as long as you add it. And that's it. We're done here.

[01:43] No. Not really. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect, and if it was, I probably wouldn't be making this video. So let's go over some things I've learned throughout the years that I think will benefit you.

[01:55] Number one, you have a food scale, going back grams will give you the best results, and is the best method for portioning and recipes. Number two, don't be scared to estimate. Say you're eating a few bites of a Greek yogurt container on the go, and that container

[02:09] is 5.3 ounces, you could punch in one or two ounces, or say, 0.25 with a container. Number three, you don't feel like typing in the food, or can't seem to find it, this app allows you to scan the barcode.

[02:21] If you still can't find it, you can also enter it in yourself in a matter of seconds. Number four, side from adding in your foods, can also set your calorie and macro goals, so

[02:33] you know how much of each you have left, which is super helpful when choosing what to eat throughout the day. You can have different graphs like weekly or monthly goals, you can add or change the name of your sections from breakfast to saving meal number one, or whatever else you want.

[02:47] Number five, here's where these apps can sometimes fail, with such large databases, mostly made by users, not all foods are alike, and sometimes things change, or are entered incorrectly. May scan a barcode, and another food item will pop up, the right one will pop up, with the

[03:03] wrong calories or serving size. The solution to this is to just keep an eye on what you're adding, and also give the macros a quick scroll to see if they match up. Don't overthink this too much. Something is off by half a gram or so, I wouldn't worry about it.

[03:17] Yes, this part of tracking can be a bit annoying, but chances are you eat a lot of the same things, so the next time you add them, it'll be that much easier. Number two, meal prep. Those of you that are a bit more strict, have a crazy schedule, this method might prove

[03:32] to be best for you. All you're doing here is finding your daily calorie goals, and preparing all of your meals for that day, based off those goals. These put you at 2000 calories a day, and you times that by 7, or however many days you're

[03:45] preparing for, and prep your meals accordingly for that amount of days. Ten ounces of chicken per day turns into 70 for the week during a meal prep, 100 grams of rice turns into 700, 20 almonds turns into 140, and so on.

[04:00] Only things that are flexible here would be the day that you meal prep, and how many meals or recipes you're going to have per day. There are also plenty of companies out there nowadays that will meal prep for you, based off your goals, if you can afford that kind of thing since it is pricey.

[04:14] Most people won't incorporate both of these methods. They'll meal prep one or two meals, and give themselves flexibility to eat other things throughout the day by tracking their calories, which will help with cravings. With that said, creating a new habit can prove to be a difficult experience, no matter the

[04:29] level of difficulty. If you get lazy for a few days, don't fault yourself too much, eventually it'll stick and become routine. For only a few minutes a day, you'll wonder why you never picked it up sooner. Drop me a comment or question below, I'll be hanging out for a bit, smack that thumbs

[04:44] up button. If you liked this video, any type of engagement helps this channel grow a ton, so I appreciate it all. Thank you guys for watching, and of course, start tracking.