Calorie counting

[simonp]

OCD: buying a salad from cafe. Taking it back to the office.  Weighing each ingredient and adding it to the livestrong site as a meal.

My guess at the amount of chicken was off by about 20%.

[simonp]

Today's dissection was a feta salad.

416 kcals; 23g fat, 228mg cholestrol, 2877mg sodium, 31g carbs (22g sugars), 10g fibre, 41g protein.

The amount of sodium is scary: that's equivalent to 7.1g of salt, so more than the daily limit in one salad.  Oops.

Won't be having that so often then!

[Chris S]

If you are at all concerned about Salt intake - don't ( as in - Never Ever Ever) buy ready-made meals of any kind.

[simonp]

Surely I simply need to know which have high sodium content and which don't?  That was the whole point of the (slightly obsessive) weighing of each component.  Ready made food doesn't have to be high in salt.  This was a combination of feta cheese, olives and sun blushed tomatoes happening to give a very high salt level.  In the case of prepared salads from a cafe, there is no nutrition label which is why I did the weigh every ingredient thing.

Yesterday I had the chicken salad.  Sodium content 106mg.  Nothing wrong with that at all, and I came in at 1.1g of sodium or less than 3g of salt for the entire day.  It helps that I don't add salt when making rice, etc.

Tomorrow will be Tuna Nicoise salad.  I expect that to also have a high salt content.

[hellymedic]

Unfortunately, almost all manufactured food is high in salt.
I concur with Chris S.

[simonp]

This is about finding out which are and which aren't and then being able to make an informed choice.

The alternatives are:

 - guess

or

 - go hungry

(I've tried making my own sandwiches but as I get free sandwiches at work, this isn't an option that appeals).

[simonp]

Seems to be working.

One thing I've realised.  It's really quite hard to eat too many calories, if you do a bit of exercise and stick to reasonably healthy options (no chocolate, sweets, cakes, crisps*, etc).  I've come in 150 calories down on the target today (incl allowing for exercise I've done), and I'm stuffed.

* I did have a packet of crisps today - 183 calories.

[PaulF]

That's a great little app - thanks for highlighting it. I just may become a calorie obsessive now

[Chris S]

Yes - I'm hooked up too  . I'm using the iTouch app - which I'm guessing isn't materially different to the iPhone version.

On first look, the web app seams much more pessimistic/realistic about my calorie intake, and if it's right, I can see how I've been over-budget on calories-in.

It'll be interesting to see what it makes of this weekend's Audax; 9 hours of moderate cycling .

[jogler]

Great idea for a thread!

Y'see - I've never been able to make this work. All the bumpf online is for normal folks who have Real Jobs and don't work at home. They, like you, have "typical" BMRs because they (and you) actually need to set foot out of the house each day.

I do not. I can easily go a month without setting foot outside my house - which is kinda creepy. This is one Very Good reason for doing RRTY by the way.

Anyhoo - what it means is, although I'm a Fat Bastard and should have a BMR of 2500kcals - there's no way that's right; if I consume that amount day in day out, then even with regular exercise through cycling and Audax, I gain about 1Kg every month. My BMR is more like 1500kcals, which I just can't stick to when I'm cycling regularly as I get hungry to the point of nausea.

Calorie counting should work - I know; Greenbank made it work by keeping a food diary. Food diaries work for many folk; but not for me so far.

that' me,that is

[simonp]

Yes - I'm hooked up too  . I'm using the iTouch app - which I'm guessing isn't materially different to the iPhone version.

On first look, the web app seams much more pessimistic/realistic about my calorie intake, and if it's right, I can see how I've been over-budget on calories-in.

It'll be interesting to see what it makes of this weekend's Audax; 9 hours of moderate cycling .

It'll crash.

[jogler]

I've joined the Livestrong site but 

[Chris S]

Hmm... Sat 5th Dec

Total Calories: 3527
Net Calories: -6016

 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

There's also the FitDay website, but it's very American and is full of American foods, but nothing proper British like ReadyBrek.

[Chris S]

There's also the FitDay website, but it's very American and is full of American foods, but nothing proper British like ReadyBrek.

I used FitDay for a while, and gave up on it for that very reason. Livestrong seems much better in that respect.

[simonp]

There's also the FitDay website, but it's very American and is full of American foods, but nothing proper British like ReadyBrek.

I used FitDay for a while, and gave up on it for that very reason. Livestrong seems much better in that respect.

And if something isn't there, you can add it.

[Oaky]

There's also the FitDay website, but it's very American and is full of American foods, but nothing proper British like ReadyBrek.

I used FitDay for a while, and gave up on it for that very reason. Livestrong seems much better in that respect.

And if something isn't there, you can add it.

I'm still persisting with the site, but I'm getting annoyances that may drive me away...

The thing that annoys me most is that I can't add something without having a photo of the label or a link to nutritional info on the manufacturers site.  I realise that helps them to maintain accuracy but I can't even add such things as a private, unverified database item fro my own personal use.

In fact, for reasons unknown, I can't even add things based on a photo of the label -- selecting the image in the file selection box of my browser after hitting their "Browse..." button, but nothing ever makes its way into the file path box on the form.  I can't rule out this being a function of either my OS/browser or security paranoia settings, but it's annoying to muck about getting the label photographed and onto the laptop only for it not to work 

Given the above controls, I don't know how half the stuff in their database got in but there are quite a few wrong entries, e.g. I had to delete the fairtrade fairbreak I ate and replace it with the nestle equivalent, since whoever added it to the database somehow managed to record the 22g chocolate-coated wafer biscuit as having 122g of fat in it, and I really hate seeing numbers that are that wrong in anything.

[simonp]

The URL function seems to work fine. You can also report items.

[Oaky]

The URL function seems to work fine. You can also report items.

Yes, but since a lot of places don't have the info online, or if they do, have a requirement for a login, or have e.g. a Flash-based or similar obfuscation which doesn't lend itself to a direct URL, that's not as useful as it could be.

Hence why I photographed this) since I couldn't find a URL for it without a login requirement.

(In fact, then,  the annoyance was exacerbated by the time i spent searching for the online reference first ... I'd forgotten about that...)

[Chris S]

Oh No! Something seems to have occurred at Livestrong. All the amounts for stuff I've eaten, since I started, have reset to 0.80. Has someone just gone a bit Postal with an SQL update?

[simonp]

Oh No! Something seems to have occurred at Livestrong. All the amounts for stuff I've eaten, since I started, have reset to 0.80. Has someone just gone a bit Postal with an SQL update?

Oh, not just me then!

[Chris S]

Oh No! Something seems to have occurred at Livestrong. All the amounts for stuff I've eaten, since I started, have reset to 0.80. Has someone just gone a bit Postal with an SQL update?

Oh, not just me then!

Hehe - someone needs to RTFM so they learn that SQL updates generally need a "where" clause 

[simonp]

(Click to enlarge).

I do believe it works!

[hellymedic]

Coo! You've almost lost a stone in old money; well done!

[Oaky]

That's really good going, at what looks like a sustainable rate, and achieved very sensibly too, judging by what I've read on here.  Nice work.