How to use a calorie counter to lose weight

In today’s guide we are going to talk about the benefits of using a calorie counter to lose weight. Losing weight is considered by many very difficult, mainly because they do not know how to approach it correctly. There are many weight loss tools available today that can facilitate the whole process and help you lose weight without spending endless hours in a gym and without getting into the path of crash dieting. One such tool is the calorie counter and in this post we are going to explain in detail how you can use a calorie counter to lose weight.

What is a calorie counter and how does it relate to weight loss?

A calorie counter is simply a piece of software that gives you the ability to count how many calories there are in the foods and drinks you consume. It can give you detail nutritional information about each item and can sum up the total number of calories of the foods and drinks you eat in one day/week/month. Having this information is important in your weight loss journey as we are going to see below. Besides that, a calorie counter application may include details about the calories you burn through the various types of activities (resting, sleeping, driving etc) and exercise (walking, running, playing tennis etc).

Using a calorie counter to lose weight – a Step by Step Guide

You need to understand that weight loss is based on one very simple equation:

Weight loss = Calories Burn – Calories Consumed

If you manage to consistently consume less calories than what you burn you will eventually lose weight. As you can see there are some calculations involved with the above formula and this is where the calorie counter comes into place.

For the purpose of this guide we are going to use an actual example using our own calorie counter application, Calories4WeightLoss, and demonstrate how easy and efficient is the use of a calorie counter for losing weight.

Step 1 – The importance of finding how many calories you consume per day

Before getting your hands dirty it is necessary to understand the importance of counting the calories you consume in a day. Eating (and drinking) is the only source of energy to the body and giving more energy than the body needs to carry out its physical functions (breathing, digesting food etc.) and other activities (walking, working etc) will result in the accumulation of extra energy (either as fat reserves) and weight gain will occur. By recording the different items in a calorie counter you can take control of the calories IN VS calories OUT. Your goal is to achieve a daily calorie deficit (i.e. burn more than what you consume) and once this number reaches 3500 calories you lose one pound.

Step 2 – Every calorie counts

Ask yourself the following question: “What did I eat yesterday?” Can you accurately remember everything you consumed (either foods or drinks)?  Try to make up a list of items and then revisit the list and add those intermediate snacks, the afternoon coffee, the chocolate bar you eat after dinner, the salad dressing, the cheese on the plain spaghetti and those cookies that a colleague brought from home. The point to make here is that we often tend to eat items that contribute to our weight gain without understanding (or remembering it). These items are usually full of calories and fat and even though we are careful on what we eat during our main meals we still gain weight and wondering why. So, every calorie counts and a calorie counter will help you track down those items and be more selective on what to eat.

Step 3 – Plan your meals in advance VS Record what you eat

There are two methods to use to keep a record of what you eat, either you will use the calorie counter to plan your meals in advance and see how many calories you will consume or you can create your journal entries after you have consumed the different items. With the first approach you are being proactive and you have more control on what you are going to consume while with the second approach will give you a more accurate picture about your diet and it will be easier to pinpoint your mistakes and take corrective actions. Of course you can always combine the two methods and gain advantage of their benefits. What is important is to follow a method that works for you and is easy to adopt. At the end of the day what is required is that you know exactly your calorie sources and which items can be replaced or removed from your diet in order to create a calorie deficit that will lead to weight loss.

Step 4 – Using a calorie counter to lose weight by counting the calories you burn

Besides giving you nutritional information for foods and drinks, a calorie counter can help you lose weight by counting the calories you burn through exercise and activity. Every activity we do in our daily lives requires energy; some activities require less (e.g. sleeping) while others require more (e.g. working out). By keeping an activity and exercise journal you can find out how many calories you burn and you can ensure that this number is less than the calories you consume. In other words your goal is to create a calorie deficit that will help you lose pounds.

Step 5 – Losing weight with a calorie counter a real example

Enough theory – now let’s get into practice. A typical calorie counter application will have a dashboard showing your current status (i.e. current weight, number of calories consumed and number of calories burned), a place to search for foods and assign them to your meals (we call this a FOOD DIARY) and a place to record your activities and exercise (we call this an EXERCISE DIARY). Other functions may include a Weight History (to track down your weight changes) and a DIET CALENDAR that shows whether your daily history in terms of calorie surplus or calorie deficit. Screenshot 1 shows the home page of Calories4WeightLoss.

Calories4WeightLoss Home Page

Let us assume that a male, age 40 consumes the following items in a typical day:

Breakfast: black coffee and a cup of corn flakes with milk

Lunch: 1 big mac (McDonalds) with chips and a coke

Dinner: 1 medium steak (boneless) with rice

Intermediate Snacks: 1 piece chocolate cake, 1 banana, 1 cappuccino, 2 chocolate cookies

At a glance the above diet looks balanced but if you analyze it using a calorie counter (see screenshot below) you will see that those items give a total of 2698 calories which is above the suggested 2000 calorie diet for men. Of course what is important for weight loss is that number to be less than calories burn though exercise and activity. Also by just looking at the analysis you can easily spot which items carry the most calories and fats and these are the first things to remove or replace from your diet.

Food Analysis using a calorie counter

The same person is utilizing a 24 hour day as follows:

Resting: 8 hours

Sleeping: 8 hours

Desk Work: 7 hours

Housework : 1 hour

As you can see exercise is not part of his activities, very typical for the average person.

By performing those activities he spends about 2665 calories (see screenshot below for the analysis).

Exercise and activity analysis

The DIET CALENDAR shows that for that day he is actually consuming more calories than burn. The difference is not a lot of calories but this is just an example to demonstrate the accuracy of a calorie counter.

Diet Calendar

You can also view the short video below (1 minute and 8 seconds) that shows how easy is to search for foods items and activities and record this information in your diet calendar.

Summary

In summary you can use a calorie counter to lose weight by:

• Counting the calories in the foods and drinks
• Recording how many calories you spend in activities and exercise
• Analyzing your results and take corrective actions (i.e. eat less and exercise more)
• By tracking down your weight and identifying your progress or not
• Search for foods and activities and reading their nutritional information or the amount of calories you need for the particular activity
• By taking full control of what you eat and how you make use of your body energy.

It is certainly one of the healthiest ways to lose weight and it is a recommended weight loss method by professionals and all those who believe in natural slimming methods.