Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Lessons from a Casual Calorie Counter

I am what you could call a "casual" calorie counter, thanks to my smart phone.

What that means is this: periodically I am motivated to count calories. The motivation usually lasts for at least a couple days before I either 1.) lose interest or 2.) eat more calories than I should and become unmotivated.

If my phone was any dumber, I would never count calories.

But the apps these days.



Currently I have My Fitness Pal loaded on  my phone. It allows me to scan the bar codes of food I am eating for a quick count. I can also add recipes or there is a large bank of foods already entered so while the food I log may not be exact and the calories not completely accurate, it gives me the general idea.

It also helps me calculate how many calories I should eat each day if I wanted to say, lose a half pound a week and never exercise.

Smart.

So while my calorie counting days are few and far between, they are still beneficial because awareness is a good thing. I have found that even if I only count calories for one day, the awareness continues for much longer and I always learn something. This time I learned:

1. Moving from a Grande to a Tall and changing the milk from 2%  to skim can take off close to 100 calories on my favorite Starbucks drink.

2. A little cardio exercise every day adds enough calories for an extra snack (I didn't really learn this, but it is always fun to see the number of calories I get each day jump up after a little exercise!)

3. Adding creamer to my coffee in the morning adds A LOT more calories, like over 10 times as many as are in the coffee black.

So there you have it, lessons from a casual calorie counter. It may not work for everyone, but it works for me.

4 comments:

leah said...

this makes me smile. because i'm a casual calorie counter too...well maybe more sporadic than casual. :)

megs @ whadusay said...

haha, Leah, sporadic is the word I should have used! That describes me much better. :)

Marla said...

Yeah, but then you couldn't have used your witty title.

arlan and katie said...

this little app has been Arlo and I's obsession since the beginning of March...it really does work!!!
You are SO right...we've switched out a lot of our staples (bread, milk, coffee creamer, pudding, etc) to sugar free/fat free versions...it's a genius at telling you what you can & should not eat!