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Another # post...calorie counting and WW points
Can you girls who are good at calorie counting or doing WW explain to me how you keep track of your numbers?
One of the reasons why I haven't joined WW is that I'm terrible at counting. I don't eat a ton of processed foods, so things I eat don't always have calorie counts on them. Also, I rarely follow recipes. I just throw stuff together. The idea of entering recipes into the sites for counting purposes seems incredibly time consuming, and most of the time, the stuff I make...salads, soups, pasta dishes, etc, aren't ever really repeated because I usually just put in whatever we have in the house that particular day.
Do others have this problem? Do you take notes in the kitchen and copy later? Or do you rely just on strict readings of recipes when you are counting?
Any advice to make this easier for me?
Re: Another # post...calorie counting and WW points
WW has a list of common foods and their points values. When making a recipe, I use those to figure out what the points are. (I either figure out the amounts I'm eating, or I figure out the points for the whole recipe and divide by # of servings.) WW also has a calculator slider thingy that uses calories, fat and fiber to compute points. It's approximately 50 calories per point, but the fat and fiber content affects it.
Once you do it for a while, you know what's what and you learn to identify portion sizes easily. I know a lot of the points of the things I eat without looking them up. I just have to write them down to keep track. (I haven't done this in 2 days 'cause I misplaced my tracker...time to break out the notebook paper.)
Does that make any sense? Feel free to ask more questions. Are you considering joining?
my read shelf:
ESF, I had to do a diet analysis for a week for a nutrition class. ?It was terribly time consuming b/c I'm like you in that I make almost all my own food, and it was a real struggle for me to note amounts of ingredients. ?It is possible to look up every iingredient and get all the nutrition values (at least you would only be interested in calories instead of the 15 or so things I had to track), but it takes forever.
If you think you cook healthier than a nebulous average, look up general foods for an estimate and then round down. ?Real scientific, huh??
Interesting, I'll have to check it out!
ESF, I'll give you the same advice I gave PGH yesterday -- Core, Core, Core. I mostly cook my own foods as well, and Core is great for that. It's not called Core any more -- they just launched the Momentum plan, which focuses on eating mostly Core foods from the previous plan (lean proteins, whole grains, fruits, veggies, etc). The difference is in how you track; you can choose to track points or not track points. I choose the "Simply Filling" method of tracking, which means if it's on the list of foods, I don't track any points unless I'm eating food not on the list. For me, that's mostly nuts, cheeses, and wine :-D
I can't do Core because I eat "healthy foods" that aren't considered core. Example: the only fat-free dairy I will eat is milk or yogurt. Fat free cheese is gross and wrong in every single way. I hate it. Plus, I live in the land of amazing cheese. I just have to be careful to eat 1 ounce of delicious goat cheese at a time rather than the whole log.
Core is great for those who can do it, but it would drive me bonkers. Once you get the hang of counting points, it's not that hard. My H is trying to start counting his points, and he's constantly asking me how much something is. It's tricky at first, but after a while, it's not hard to figure out how many points something you're cooking is.
Bridey, there is no reason taht goat cheese can't be eaten on the Core plan. I eat it all the time. I refuse to eat fat-free cheese. I just count points for it, because it's a non-Core food. You get 35 flex points PLUS all of your activity points. I have plenty for full-fat cheese and wine and nuts each week.
I agree that counting points gets easier. But for me, Core really forced me to focus in on the healthy foods that should be making up the bulk of my diet *and* it saved me from counting the points of everything I put in my mouth. If I eat a dinner of grilled chicken, couscous, broccoli, and a salad, the only think I count is goat cheese or nuts on my salad. The rest is Core, and I don't have to worry about whether my chicken was 4 oz or 6 oz. I eat to satisfaction, watch my hunger cues, and move on.
To be honest, I was verrrry resistant to Core for a long time, but I had two friends have great success on it. I tried it, and I've never looked back. But you gotta figure out what works for you!
Interesting. I'll have to take a look at their plans and think about it a bit more. My big problem is portion control, so I'm not sure if that plan would really help me address that.
I think I really just need to get a good kitchen scale (mine broke a year ago and I never replaced it) and lots of tupperware and just portion every thing out as soon as I get home from the store.
I think I'll make a Target run this week and get a few supplies.
Pasta is what really kills me. The idea that I'm supposed to get 8 meals out of a box of penne is beyond my comprehension.
ESF, if you decide to count points with WW (they've changed the name of the plan from Flex to Momentum, but the points are basically the same), feel free to ask for any help. It's how I lost weight in '07, so I'm pretty comfortable with the program. Except for diet soda and Crystal Light (bad for me, I know), I don't actually eat too many "diet" foods. I don't buy WW products, and I buy very little food that is altered to be fat-free or sugar free. I rarely even use margarine; I just use less butter. I focus on portion control, follow a lot of the Core plan principles (whole grains, vegetables, etc.), and try to plan my indulgences and make them worth it.
The H and I are trying to largely follow Michael Pollan's philosophies: don't eat food your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food; and eat food, not too much, mostly plants. That, combined with the portion control of WW, has been really helpful for me.
I could have written this post!
YGM.
Is that 8 meals for 1, or 8 meals for 2 (or more?). I usually make a recipe with half a 16 oz box, and that feeds DH and me that night and the next day at lunch. So by that logic, it's 8 meals. But that's if we're never having seconds, etc.
Yeah...the idea that 1/8 of a box of pasta is supposed to satisfy me is beyond my imagination.
Pasta is a total weakness for me though. Perphaps I should just abstain.
Fwiw, the whole wheat pastas are more filling... and free, on Core! That doesn't mean you can eat long past satisfaction, but I find I'm able to eat reasonable amounts of pasta regularly and still lose.
whole wheat isn't as fabulous, but there are some brands that are great. I like the Eden Kamut Spirals... Kamut is a grain with lots of protein, it has a good consistency, and it's very tasty.