Appreciate the tips guys, now on to more Calories questions, what I have done over the weekend is to make a chart of all of the foods I normally eat, then I went to the the calorie site and jotted down the caloric intake of all of the foods so now I can see at a glance just how many calories each food contains, I still have to get the scale and should do so hopefully this weekend.
What I'd like to know for now is, how do you caluclate the calories when you "mix" foods? Like Tuna or potato salads? Or if you make a simple sandwich and add mustard and/or light mayo?

I must say I am very surprised not have received an answer to my last question. Do you all "only" eat food that has a caloric value or don't you sometimes eat foods that does not have a value to it? If the latter, then what do you do, do you simply "estimate" or do you just ignore the calories issue for that meal? Reason I'm asking is, I am coming across quite a few foods I eat that does not have a value to them, at least not on the calorie counting sites.

Stoptheexcuses has a great point about the poles. The hiking poles also help to keep you from falling if you step wrong (they have saved me many times when hiking over rocky terrain) and to take the stress off your knees going downhill.

Julie

If im making the food i calculate all the items that im putting in(like the tuna/mayo/bread for a sandwich) some sites like fitday will give you an average calorie count for stuff like potato salad and other types of mixed foods. if your not sure what all has been put in (like at a restaurant) i would make a high guestimate but thats just what i do.

potato salad(avg salad made with real mayo)
Nutrition Facts

Amount Per 1 cup
Calories 274.79
Calories from Fat 136.54

potato salad with egg(avg salad made with real mayo)
Nutrition Facts

Amount Per 1 cup
Calories 276.54
Calories from Fat 141.55


tuna salad(made with real mayo and water packed tuna)
Amount Per 1 cup
Calories 295.63
Calories from Fat 98.82

That's a very nice explanation, thanks, I will use that method too, count the calories of all the foods separately as best as I can although main problem with this is, that when making certain foods like "stewed" meat, I think this will be impossible to count as there are a lot of different seasonings involved, meaning, you can count the calories of the meat you use but when you stew it, the calories greatly increase as I've been told.

Incidentally, "calories from fat" , why is this info given along with the caloric value?

what calorie site are you using to track your calories? if you haven't already, try fitday.com

for the stewed meat question - what do you add to the meat? if your talking about herbs and spices - these things practically have no caloric value at all, especially since you use them in relatively small quantities.

when i count the calories of a sandwich i just count all the bits seperately - right down to the mayo.

oh and any good calorie site should tell you about calories from fat, protein and carbs. all food is made up of those 3 parts. so you can see how much of your food is coming from each. fitday will calculate the percentages for you.

Hi, regarding the "stew", we cook it by "browning" sugar ig hot oil, that's how it get's it dark brown color, so I am guessing that is both the oil and sugar that we use to cook it and alsoe the "way" it is cooke [fried actually]that's giving the high caloric value.

in that case just add the calories from the sugar and oil.

Thanks, will do.

I met this guy last week who told me that he counts calories for all of his meals except one, either lunch or dinner and generally eats healthy but eats 1 "regular" meal made up of whatever he wants but while maintaining portion control and this works so he can eat a large burger or pizza or chinese food once per day and watch everything else.
Has anyone here ever heard of something like this? Regarding the calorie counting, how does this work then? This is telling me that let's say, I should be consuming less than 2000 cals per day, does it matter which meals give me that number or is it ok just as long as my total intake per day is under 2000 regardless of what's in those meals?

That's what I used to do when I was a strict calorie counter last spring. I never knew what was for dinner (mom cooked) so I just counted lunch and breakfast and snacks. It works pretty good.

I think that could work in principle, but I know that the meals I usually don't count would be something like dinner... and if you are someone like me, who likes to go out, the portions at restaurants are tremendous.... a single meal could have as many as 1000 cals itself if you include beverages and the like... on another day, it may be only 300 cals... so I think because of the wide range, it is best to try to pay attention...

I think a better idea is to give yourslef one day a week where you don't moniter your caloric intake... have one splurge day, but pay attention to the rest =)

If I were to do this every day, I would pay attention to portion control with the meal whose cals I won't be counting.