Okay girls and boys. I’ve been procrastinating on this thing for about eh… 10… 15 years… How do I count calories? How do I know how much to eat, what, when, and how do I measure my success? I’ve been married to a level II fitness and conditioning coach, who coached me with eating and all of that, making sure I don’t go off the rails, but now that we’ve divorced, I had to figure this out for myself. Using his tips, I decided to take the bull by the horn and actually start counting, measuring and doing the hard work for myself. And I thought that I might share the information with you as a part of self-improvement and health side of this blog.

I’ve been working on an Excel sheet to help me count the difficult stuff and keep records straight, something that I could have used years ago. I’ll share that with you, and explain how to use it.  If the following doesn’t make sense, download the sheet anyway; I’ve added some comments and info bits in there to help you wrap your mind around it. Enter some values and see what changes – it may be clearer on the Excel sheet than written out like this.

But first, some important stuff.

Finding the balance point between wasting away and burning fat

There is a delicate balance to maintain when trying to lose weight – or fat, really. Your body is designed to keep you alive in all circumstances. Here’s something that chilled me… If I count the daily calories that my body NEEDS TO SURVIVE without eating into my muscle-tissue, I get about 1500 calories a day. I heard a friend planning to go on a meal replacement diet, and I heard her say that the first few weeks she’d be limited to… Get this… 850 calories a day. I’m like EXCUSE ME WHAT?! This is a starvation diet, and the reason why it’s so popular, is because you get a quick weight loss out of it, but what they don’t tell you is that the weight comes off from your muscle tissue, and you won’t lose an ounce of fat – unless you run out of muscle tissue to burn, of course. This sounds unbelievable, but here’s what your body “thinks”: If it is not getting enough calories, it figures that famine struck your land and it will go on an emergency mode: Shut down all engines that can be shut down, burn excess muscle tissue – all that you can spare, because muscle burns energy (fat), and you cannot spare any!! It will do anything to slow down your metabolism, until it figures the famine is over and you can safely start living again, and by that the most logical thing to do now is to store fat again, because you don’t know when the next famine is going to strike, and you’d better be prepared! And, another thing; you’ve wasted away all available muscle tissue, your body burns fat slower and whatever rate you have been able to burn fat before this brilliant diet idea, you’re  now putting back on – fast.

The trick what most people don’t care to research on or believe is that you actually DO NEED TO EAT at a certain rate to burn fat. You can lose weight without eating, but you won’t lose fat. Muscle weighs more than fat (a square inch of fat is lighter than a square inch of muscle that is tighter tissue) and that’s why you may weigh less but be more ‘fat’. If you don’t get enough calories a day, your body will hang onto every ounce of fat it can keep holding onto, and you’ll be pulling your hair out thinking what’s wrong, probably deciding to reduce calories even further (if you can), or give up and decide that you’re just one of those people who are destined to stay fat.

We have to eat at our PERSONAL basal metabolic rate. Sounds fancy, but it’s really quite ok to work out what that means. For every kilogram you have of lean body mass (skeleton, organs, muscle etc.) you need to eat 32 calories a day. To work out what your lean body mass is (this is sorta like your rising sign in the zodiac, most people don’t know theirs, but it’s more important than their sun sign), you need to know your body fat percentage. To know that, you can either visit the doctor once a week (not gonna happen) or buy yourself a pair of fat calibres or a fat scanner. (I recommend a digital fat calibre that calculates the fat percentage for you, such as AccuFitness FatTrack -series – Amazon has them for about 50 dollars, no biggie, or just now for 29 dollars, as it happens.) Okay – you calculate how much your body carries fat: bf% * your weight = body fat weight, then, you subtract that from your total body weight Your weight – Your fat weight in kilograms = Lean body mass. All this is counted for you in the Excel sheet, I’m just telling in case you wonder where the figures come from. Once you have that, you’ll have to multiply that by 32, which is the number of calories you need to eat per each kilogram of body weight. (I’ll soon calculate this in pounds, too, but when in Aussie, do as the Aussies do.)

If you eat at this rate, you will burn fat Every Step You Take. Pretty motivating, isn’t it? Add exercise, and you’ll burn more, obviously, but really, there’s not much need to, because you don’t have to burn off excess intake before you get to the fat reserves!

My chart will tell you when to add calories or reduce them!

In my chart, as you keep tracking your fat percentage, you will be able to clearly see if your body weight consists of fat or lean tissue. If your fat reserves are increasing instead of decreasing, you know you have a problem. If your lean body mass is decreasing, that’s alarm for EAT MORE! If your muscle weight is increasing, you can start jumping up and down because you’re doing GREAT (and not because you need the extra exercise! :D) That’s it. That’s all you need to look at, is your lean body weight to know which way you’re going… That is, in addition to counting those F**in calories! I hope I can make that simple enough for you, too.

Calculating the calories…

I admit, I haaate this part, but at the same time there’s certain temptation to it, because you feel like you’re IN CHARGE. It will only take you a week or two to get this process honed down and then you don’t have to spend that much time on it, but at first it seems ENDLESS. Start on a Friday evening, figure things out over the weekend and have a plan for the week. It is not easy, but also it’s not as hard as you’d like to think – you just buckle down and do it, we’re all grown-ups here. (And if we’re not we should probably attempt to be…)

You’ll need a proper kitchen scale with a tare (zeroing) function. Measure each food you’re having, or calculate by the package size, which ever suits best.

So, in my Excel chart, you can simply enter the weight of the food (in grams) and how many calories it contains per 100g of it, and you’ll find out how many calories you’ve consumed. I’ve also included a formula for converting kilojoules to calories – two different ways to measure energy content, as you probably know.

In fresh foods, you’ll have to Google for the nutritional value content of different foods, but… Here’s the thing, You Know what you’re likely to eat, right? Count those calories and store them into the same file, and every time you eat that food, just copy the calories over.

OK. Take the food you’re going to eat, figure out how much it weighs (count or weigh) and enter the weight into the Excel sheet calorie calculator (How many calories did I have?) Then, check the calories per 100g – part of the package (or Google if fresh food) and enter that into the appropriate field. You should be given the amount of calories in that food. Check everything at first to give yourself an idea, after a while you’ll learn what’s in what, but at first it can be a bit of an embarrassment to wonder which has more calories a slice of cheese or a tomato. 😀

I have built the chart in sort of reverse order, which felt the most logical to me: I’ve entered the needed calories first, and every food item I eat, I reduce from that calorie count, rather than doing it the other way around, which requires a mathematics to keep counting how much more I can eat today. This means that you (too) have to add eaten calories with a minus mark in front – a bit tacky really but you’ll survive!

At this stage, I wouldn’t worry about what when how late so much, just get used to counting calories and reaching and keeping to your daily limit, it’s difficult enough as it is, without adding extra complications. This will get the ball rolling, and when you’re ready, then start worrying about stuff like:

Nutritional values

For now, I’m not going to bother you with nutritional values of foods, but obviously you know what is healthy and what isn’t, by simple fucking logic. Buy no sugar products whenever you can!! (Be WARY of low fat products, because they’re usually loaded with sugar making them absolute waste of money.) Always check for two things: Calorie count and amount of sugar. Beasts.

Good news: Bread is NOT THAT BAD, as long as it’s not white. Rye bread, in moderation, is pretty awesome for you, and you can at least buy Ryevita crackers in Australia, and those damned things are LOADED with good stuff and personally I freaking love them. I’ve got the essentials entered into the charts (second sheet).

The dirty trick

You need to eat the minimum amount of calories that your body needs, right? Now, I don’t recommend this, because it is Dirty and Nasty and bad for you, but if you haven’t had all of the calories you need, do eat ANYTHING to make up for the deficit, even if it’s chips! But make sure you leave the rest and only eat what you need to make up for the lack, right! (Chocolate actually has some pretty good nutrients in it… 😉 )

Protein

Add protein to your diet if you want a boost to that lean body mass. Egg whites or Whey Protein Powder is a good source. I wish they made protein powder without flavouring, I’d mix it with breakfast cereal or porridge, but as it happens… Vanilla is usually the least offensive flavouring. On my Excel sheet you’ll find another quick fix for protein powder meal replacement.

If you are hungry

If you are hungry, it means your body is already flung to emergency mode. Try to eat a bit before you get hungry to save yourself from that fate. You don’t need massive amount of calories to fix that, although that’s tempting. You need bulk; roughage, as in fibre. Those Ryvita crackers! (Kick margarine to the gutter and) spread the BUTTER  on the less holy side, and you’ll thank me for the tip. 😉 Yeah, Ryvita crackers are great for killing hunger, and then just massive amounts of veggies – if you can stomach them… I know people have hard time even swallowing vegetables, but.. yeah, no need to preach how important they are, do I? Fruit, by the way, tends to have a high amount of sugar, so they are not a good replacement for vegetables calorie-wise, but they do contain a lot of nutrients.

Who to ask for advice?

If lost, for heavens sake ask advice from someone with a muscle tone, ok? Male or female, don’t matter. Our bodies work under the same rules, even though female body needs more fat than male body does.

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