Counting Calories & Types of Foods & Weight Loss

[unnecessaryhat]

Segments on today's Here and Now & Talk of The Nation (PRI and NPR news shows, respectively) focused on weight loss and counting calories. Here's the Here and Now Link and  Here's the Talk of the Nation Link (the audio/podcast will be up later today).

Comments

[mark356]

I can't count calories in terms of how many calories I eat over the course of a whole day-- at least in the sense of reducing. A day is too long, and there's just too many variables, and it makes eating way too stressful. However, there are a couple of situations for which I will count calories. I need about 2500 high-quality calories every day to function well, so if I'm planning a road trip or something, I'll add up the calories in the food I'm bringing to see if I have enough. When I'm cooking a dish, I'll often do the same-- there's really no better guide to portion size. Some dishes say they serve 4, but then you see that each serving has only 200 calories-- no wonder you're still hungry! Or they'll say that the cake is for 12, but you'll see that each slice has like 900 calories if you cut them that big. I also use calories when I'm substituting ingredients: say I'm substituting ground walnuts for butter, for instance, and the recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of butter. That's 300 calories. One ounce of walnuts has about 185 calories, so it means that to substitute for 3 tablespoons of butter, you'd need a little more than an ounce and a half. I use calorie counts as a tool, but I don't obsessively keep track of my intake.