Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

How To Figure Out How Many Calories You Consume Each Day


Although most people know that understanding how many calories we consume is essential to losing weight, it can be pretty hard to figure out what that number is (especially if you eat out a lot). Unfortunately, however, ignorance will not work. Many foods contain more calories than you’d expect. If you’re not keeping an eye on how many you eat every day, your weight loss efforts could be in vain.

So what can you do to ensure you get a good estimate of what you are consuming on a daily basis?

Option 1: Sign Up To A Calorie Tracking Service

There are a huge number of online calorie tracking services, as well as smartphone apps, that make it easy for you to register what you eat every day. These websites and apps can easily be found with a simple search online, though note that some do come with a monthly fee.

You may be wondering how exactly these sites work. Basically, they have a built in food database that already has the calorie count of most foods programmed into it. Some were added by the program creators, others may have been added by normal users like you.

All you have to do is sign up for the site, go to the food tracking page, and enter the food you have eaten into the correct search bar. Be specific by entering the exact brand if you can. Once you’ve done that, you can see entries in the food database that match your search, and you can select the closest match and add that your calorie count.

Option 2: Track It Yourself (With Some Help!)

If you don’t have constant access to the internet, or prefer not to use these services, then another thing you can do is purchase a nutrition book that has a list of different foods and their calorie counts, and use this book as a guide to keep a written food diary at home, where you manually count your calories by assigning the values provided in the purchased book for the corresponding foods to the food entries and adding up their total at the end of the day. This way is more tedious, but for less tech-savvy people, this is enough to work.

There are also some digital kitchen scales available that will work out nutritional data for you. You’ll still need to enter a code based on the scale’s manual, but it’s far quicker than working it out yourself. These scales are very accurate and useful for people with specific health conditions, too.

Tracking your calories is a wonderful way to tackle dieting, as it offers you a way to eat whatever you want in a balanced way, while teaching you portion control and nutritional estimation. There’s no need to cut out any particular food out of your diet; just eat what you want but stay within the allocated number of calories for the day.


Comments

comments

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Fitness
Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Bodybuilding Revealed


I am not a bodybuilder, nor am I destined to become one in this lifetime. However, when I started reading “Brink’s Bodybuilding Revealed“, I could not put it down.

What is BodyBuilding Revealed?

Bodybuilding Revealed

Bodybuilding Revealed

This 632 page book is very well-written and full of useful and interesting information. You get virtually everything you could possibly want to know about bodybuilding, whether you are a beginner, intermediate level, or advanced.

Will Brink is responsible for the majority of this book. His focus is on new bodybuilders and more intermediate level guys and gals.

The topics Brink covers  in Bodybuilding Revealed include:

Bodybuilding Revealed Chapter 1 – Nutrition – which explains fat, protein and carbohydrates, goes into detail about the glycemic index, includes the “Brink Pyramid”, Brink’s Top 10 Bodybuilding Foods, and a section entitled Vegetarians vs. Meat Eaters.

Bodybuilding Revealed Chapter 2 – Constructing Your Muscle-Building Diet – this is the core of his diet and nutrition plan, and he goes into detail on resting metabolic rate, the thermic effect of a meal, and the energy expenditure of physical energy. This Chapter also includes the Meal Planner and how to use it.

Bodybuilding Revealed Chapter 3 – Getting Organized – in this Chapter, you learn how to set up your kitchen, dine out, and how to use the Diet Planner and Food Database.

Bodybuilding RevealedChapter 4 – Completing the Picture – in this Chapter you learn how to work smarter, track your progress and use the Accumeasure to measure your body’s composition.

Bodybuilding Revealed Chapter 5 – Supplements – this Chapter reviews a number of popular supplements and reminds you that you can find over 440 supplement reviews in the Members’ Area Forum.

Bodybuilding RevealedChapter 6 – Training – this Chapter covers the three and four days splits that most bodybuilders use. More advanced information can be found in the articles by Charles Poliquin and in the Members’ Area Forum.

Bodybuilding RevealedChapter 7 – Cardio – Brink goes into detail on cardio and answers the question, “Does Cardio Help…Or Hinder Muscle Gain?”

Charles Poliquin has a great section – towards the end of the book – called “Individualization of Mass Building Programs” – which is targeted to the more advanced body builders. In addition, this section also includes:

  • Poliquin’s 21 Training For Mass Principles
  • Introduction to ‘Sample Training Programs’
  • Sample Training Programs
  • Are You Delusional About Your Fiber Makeup?

One very convenient feature of the ebook is the hyperlinks in each Chapter that lead you to videos and other information on Brink’s website that explain each exercise.

And, there’s more – this isn’t only an ebook. At the website you will find:

  • A Members’ Area Forum, with paid professional moderators to answer all of your questions
  • An exercise database
  • Meal Planners, recipes, and shopping tips
  • Good foods and foods to avoid
  • And, much, much more

If you get confused at all the bodybuilding terms, never fear. Brink includes an appendix with a “Glossary of Bodybuilding Jargon and Slang” and another appendix with “Brink’s Top Mass Gaining Foods.”

As a bonus, included are three training reports by Evan R. Peck, M.D.:

  • Overcoming Training Plateaus
  • Misconceptions of Muscle Soreness
  • Weight Training Injuries

In another very useful bonus, Brink gives you more than ten pages of “Brink’s Hybrid Training System” that “attempts to utilize all of the energy pathways by varying rep ranges, volume, tempo, etc. without over emphasizing any one pathway”.

Should you buy Bodybuilding Revealed?

This is an excellent ebook with access to many bonuses on Brink’s website. Anyone truly interested in bodybuilding should own a copy. Even couch potatoes like me found it full of useful information I could apply to my life.

Whether you are a bodybuilder – or not – you can improve your fitness and health with the information in this well-written ebook Bodybuilding Revealed.