Hello,

I have recently started a diet plan that involves monitoring calorie intake to create a daily calorie deficit. I am fairly positive that I can stick to this deficit, however, I am new to the "art" of calorie counting and am in need of a few tips and advice.

I am currently living at home, with my Mum being the primary cook. Most nights we have homemade dinners and I find it extremely difficult to track the amount of calories in homemade meals. Especially when I am not cooking them myself. Is there a trick to being able to monitor calories of homemade meals? Or should I just be cooking them myself and using only foods where I can EASILY find out the calorie count?

I have signed up on Calorie Count Plus (http://caloriecount.about.com/) and have been using their database of foods, but that only covers pretty basic ingredients and pre-packaged foods/meals, and I have a hard time trusting a lot of the information there, in addition to most of the items not seeming to be 100% accurate in terms of serving sizes and weight.

So how am I to do this, while being as accurate as possible? What are the tips/tricks and generally successful techniques to monitoring calorie intake?

Any advice would be appreciated!

most food journals allow you to enter custom foods and most food journals access the usda food database... so unless you're using someone else's custom entries (that's one of the downsides to spark's food diary) then your entries should be fairly accurate.

You can go to Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com (http://www.nutritiondata.com) and dosome comparisons.

as for what yourmother is cooking - spend time and ask her what she's using to cook... or assist in the cooking so you're aware of what you're eating...

your best weapon in calorie counting is being aware of what constitutes a portion size...

Why do you smell like a troll?

it s impossible to track calories in a home made meal, but u should have an idea whether it is too much for you.

Huh?

Why would it be impossible to track calories in a homemade meal.

It's totally possible to track calories in a homemade meal...if you know what's going into it. I cook every night and figure the amount of calories in everything I cook.

The key is KNOWING what's going into the food. Like someone has already suggested...talk to your mom about using fewer bad things, like less oils, butters, etc., and more GOOD. At least be involved, if you can, by helping her cook to get a more accurate idea of what's going into what you eat.