Calorie counting can be a big problem, but knowing how to evaluate the content of substances in various foods will help in losing or maintaining constant weight. Many people have been successful in losing weight by counting how many calories they consume throughout the day.
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How many calories do you need during the day?
Before starting a diet, it is necessary to establish how many calories you need for normal life. This is not an easy task. You should consider your weight, height, age, and daily activity level. Having learned all the necessary data, look in the special literature, which describes in detail the calorie consumption for each specific case. This will be an estimate of the number of calories needed every day. If you want to lose weight, you need to get fewer calories than you need to maintain a constant weight. In order to understand how much less, you again have to look at a book or consult a nutritionist.
Find out the calorie content of foods
Many foods are incredibly high-calorie, so you should reduce their servings with meals. It is also recommended that you check how many calories are in the drinks you consume. At first glance, the number of calories does not seem very significant. However, if you look at the long term, then three calories in a glass of mineral water or an energy drink can turn into a few extra grams of fat per day. When you have received all the necessary information about the products you consume, calculate how much energy you get per day. To do this, calculate the approximate weight of the products. Add everything up and you’ll get the total number of calories. Check the number several times to make sure it is correct.
Count every serving
The ability of most people to evaluate portions of food is poor. We are so used to seeing huge portions that we consider it normal. There are some simple rules on how to calculate the number of calories in foods. First you need to understand that all products have different densities. For example, a serving of meat, weighing one hundred and fifty grams, is no larger than a deck of cards in size. That is why it is worth knowing exactly the weight of each serving. For this, you can use a kitchen scale. Before each meal, weigh a plate of food on such a scale and subtract the weight of the plate from the total weight. You can also find out the mass of dishes by weighing each plate and cup separately. This data can then simply be memorized or recorded and used continuously.