Food logging to help with weight-loss

Food/Calorie logging

If you want to ensure you are achieving a calorie deficit in order to lose weight then you must find some way of tracking your calorie intake - and expenditure. 

The best way to do this is by using a program/app and measuring tools (for both liquid and solids) and logging EVERY SINGLE THING YOU EAT AND DRINK. You can’t half-arse this as the data then becomes meaningless. No airy-fairy ‘bit of turkey’ or ‘pack of donuts’ - you must be very strict for AT LEAST 3 WEEKS so that you build up a record of the food and drink you regularly consume. It may sound like a huge task but it gets easier every day and for less time than you spend looking at the TV Guide or scrolling through FaceBook posts, you can educate yourself with information you can use for the rest of your life. (I spend less than 5 minutes a day now tracking calorie intake and exercise expenditure as most of the foods i eat now - after 18 months of logging - are mostly very simple, unprocessed and natural foods). 

For ease I’ll use MyFitnessPal as an example as I know it well. 

Single food logging:

1. Chicken Breast. Cook chicken breast however you like then place either a piece of foil/kitchen roll on your scales to get the cooked weight in grams. Or, place your plate on the scales, hit the TARE button to zero it and pop your chicken breast on the plate. *If you’re having potatoes with it, simply hit TARE again on scales and add the pots - noting down the gram weight for each item. Try to get a food database entry that has a green tick next to it as this means it is verified. Be careful of other people’s entries as some are lazy, misguided or just plain stupid.

2. Log onto MFP and find an entry for ‘Cooked Chicken’ and enter the gram weight against your meal.. 

**IMPORTANT. Some foods - esp pasta, rice and meat have a very different weight when cooked to uncooked due to water absorption or removal. (I weighed my pasta cooked but logged it as uncooked for the first week or two and it left me very hungry as could only eat half the amount. *Pasta weighs twice as much cooked than uncooked).

‘Meal’ Logging. 

You may find that you eat the same combinations of food quite regularly and it is a bind to keep entering the single elements.To get round this, simply weigh and log all the component parts against a meal (don’t include anything else) then hit ‘Quick Tools’ and ‘Remember Meal’. Give it a meaningful name like ‘Chicken, salad and mayo wrap’ and save it. When you want to use it again, just click ‘Add Food’ and choose the ‘Meals’ tab. *I use this for coffee as who wants to log coffee granules, 25ml milk and a tiny bit of sugar 2 or 3 times a day?

Liquid logging. 

Be very strict the first time you log liquids (ie milk on cereal, olive oil for cooking) and make a mental note of what an average amount is for you. Use a measuring jug for accuracy and try not to deviate from that amount. Also, log your water intake EVERY DAY. *Get a water bottle with the amount in ML/Oz/Pints written on the side then reuse that throughout the day - takes no time at all once you’re in the habit. 

Logging calories

Exercise logging.

Whilst it is important to log your exercise to check your ‘calories out’ total, do be careful with over-inflated estimates for calorie burn provided by apps and machines. If you want to make sure you don’t undo all your hard work then try to eat only 50% of your exercise calories.