Learning to measure and judge portion sizes will lead you to smaller jeans sizes. For the first few weeks as you begin counting calories, you are going to have to plan to spend a little extra time at the grocery market(so you can compare food labels), some time online looking up calorie counts for foods that don't have food labels(fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, meats), and a little effort weighing out meat portions.
You will never be able to account for every calorie, and if you start trying to, it might be time for an intervention. Knowing your calorie consumption is not about being paranoid. It's just to get a number close enough that you can be confidant that you are eating fewer calories than you are burning. And, someday soon, you will achieve your healthy weight and you will need to add calories to your diet to achieve an equilibrium, that is eating and burning the same amount of calories so that you don't lose or gain weight. At that point I don't worry so much about a daily equilibrium, but just trying to keep it even every few days. So if I take my girls out for ice cream tonight, I know that's okay as long as I make up for it over the next day or two.
The first part of getting a calorie count is to check the food labels as you shop. There is a lot of information on the food labels you need to be able to read to choose healthy foods, but to keep it simple for now all we are going to concentrate on is what you need to lose weight. With that in mind, the most important info on the label for you will be the calories per serving and the serving size. You cannot just look at the calories per serving by itself. Different companies will use different serving sizes when calculating calories per serving. So comparing two products together side by side is not always as easy as it might seem.
I'll give an example using some imaginary numbers that will be easy to calculate, then an example using numbers more like what you might see in the supermarket to show how it can get tricky. You may even want to plan to take a calculator at first, or use the one on your phone.
Example #1: You are comparing lunch meats. The first package lists 100 calories per serving. The second lists 50 calories per serving. If you stopped right there it would seem that the second package has the best calorie deal for you. But if we look at serving sizes we might see that the serving size for the first product is 150 grams and the serving size for the second product is 50 grams. So if we compare equal serving sizes we will see that the second product actually has 50 more calories than the first product. The first product has 100 calories in 150 grams. The second has 50 calories in 50 grams (multiply the grams by 3 to make the serving sizes equal, and you also triple the number of calories). So a 150 gram portion of the second product would have 150 calories.
Example #2: The math for the previous example is not too tough since our imaginary products had nice round numbers. But on actual lunch meat it might look more like this...
Product #1 - 65 calories per serving, serving size 50 grams.
Product #2 - 50 calories per serving, serving size 45 grams.
I've always been pretty good at math, but I'm not good enough to look at those two products and tell you which one is the winner.
So pull out you calculator. Divide the # of calories by the number of grams, and you will get a calorie per gram count. The one with the lower number is the winner.
#1 - 65/50 = 1.3 calories per gram
#2 - 50/45 = 1.1 calories per gram
Doing this might save you 35 calories when making a sandwich for lunch. That might seem insignificant to you, and if it does, I would say you have never tried living on 500 calories a day less than you burn. If I can save 35 calories on that sandwich, I can add those 35 calories somewhere else. Those extra 35 calories equals more food. More food equals less hunger. See the benefit of those few calories? It could even mean I get to add an extra slice of meat to that sandwich.
Okay, I know how to compare the calories, but I have no idea what 50 grams of sandwich meat looks like. Well, young padawan, let the food label lead you. The food label will tell you what a typical serving size looks like. In the case of lunch meat, it might say that a 50 gram serving size is equal to about 4 slices. So I know I can put 8 slices of meat on my sandwich and it equals 90 calories.
Now you can start putting a meal together. The bread package says that a serving size of bread is 1 slice and has 100 calories. A package of fat free cheese says a serving has 50 calories is equal to 1 slice. Make a sandwich with 2 slices of bread, 8 slices of turkey breast, 1 slice of cheese, and some deli mustard(0 calories per serving). Add it all up and your lunch is at 350 calories. Probably room for some raw vegetables on the side since their calorie count is so low.
Say your goal for calories is 2000 a day. That meal will account for about 400 of them. That leaves you 1600 for your other 2 meals and 2 snacks. You'll have to figure how to divide your calories on your own, but if I were targeting 2000 a day I would probably aim for 500 calories for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and 250 each for a mid morning and mid afternoon snack.
Back to food labels.... Some items might say a serving size is 1/2 can, or there are 4 servings per box. These are convenient ways to estimate your portion sizes. Note that you don't have to eat half a box of a food just because is says that is 1 serving. You can eat as much or as little as you want as long as you count the calories correctly.
For products such as fresh fruit or vegetables, you'll have to google them to find serving sizes and calorie counts. I wouldn't worry about getting to exact with these. For example, a medium banana might be listed at 100 calories. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? How big is a medium banana? You could find out calories per gram and then weight your banana on a kitchen scale, but I say just to use your best judgement and go with it. In this case, if you're off by 20 calories we'll just let it slide. Hopefully you'll be 20 off in your favor, not against you.
I do suggest weighing out your meat portions for the first couple of weeks. If you want to put a 1/4 pound of meat in your two whole wheat tortillas, it will be easier to get that amount if you weigh it. After a couple of weeks, you will be able to just look a a portion of meat and judge the size.
It might sound as if you will have to spend lots of extra time at the market comparing products. The truth is, you will at first. But after the first couple of trips, you will just be able to begin replacing products with the ones you already know are the calorie winners.
This is a sustainable way to eat, even after you no longer need to run a calorie deficiency. You will always need to count calories in some form. If you just go back to eating like you always have, you will put extra fat back on. But I no longer count my calories like I did. I used to stick at 1800 a day, and some days add another 100 from popcorn at the end of the day if I needed a late snack. But what you will find is that during the 2 or 3 or 6 months that you are accounting for all your calories, you will develop an awareness of what you are eating that you will be able to rely upon to not gain your weight back.
What I found in my case was that as I was experimenting with how many calories I could increase to to reach my calorie equilibrium, I lost another three pounds. After 5 months of 1800 calories a day, I slowly added calories each day until I stopped losing weight. Just like you will be able to look at a lump of hamburger meat and know that it is 1 serving size, you will be able to look at your daily diet and know it was between 2200 and 2400 calories.
Next we'll find how to find what a healthy weight is for you so you know where to set your target. Until then, why not spend some time online making a list of the calorie count of some of your favorite fruits, and what the main vitamins are in them?
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