I had a baby 8 mos. ago and found that afterwards I was unable to lose most of my weight. I have since decided to start eating healthier and practice portion control. Another thing that helps is writing down everything I eat daily. Well, this is where my question comes in...if I have something like a slice of cheese pizza or a salad oooooor a baked potato...how do i count those calories. The food is prepared as a meal and I have no idea how to count those calories so I dont know if I'm staying in my 1500 daily range. For example, I had chicken stir-fry yesterday and it had baked chicken in it, bell peppers and rice. How would I calculate that?! Also, I would like to know, when practicing portion control...what are acceptable portions?

At the very beginning, you'll probably be able to lose just by writing down everything you eat, without regard to quantifying it.

When that stops working, something like Fitday makes it easy to estimate calories, as long as you can estimate quantity / weight / volume.

When I was first losing, and was doing it by portion control rather than calorie counting, the right portion size was "less than I'd have eaten before." There is no one right answer for everyone. If you're counting calories, the right portion size is "one that lets me stay within my calorie range," but again, there's no one right answer for everyone.

For the stir-fry, if I were counting calories (so needed to be able to enter quantities into Fitday), I'd eyeball the chicken and guesstimate ounces or cups, then do the same for the peppers and the rice, and add some oil for it being stirfried.

I don't obsess over getting my calorie counts right if I eat out, unless I have nutritional information handy. I do try to record everything with my best guess, but sometimes a guess is the best you can do.

The easiest thing to do would be to measure each ingredient individually and add them up.

Food Portion Control - How to Choose Healthy Portions of Food - How Big are Healthy Food Portions

Try that for portion sizes.

Thanks, thats very good information. I am going to try the website that will help me count my calories. I always heard people say that simply writing stuff down will help you eat healthier and lose weight, but I never imagined it would actually work! To my surprise it worked wonders...I think that maybe I hold myself accountable and whatever I dont wanna see on there, I dont eat! Thanks again for the link...any other links or online assistance is greatly appreciated.