All About Tracking My Calories
Tracking my calories makes me mindful of my food intake, one of the most significant factors contributing to my body weight.
My colleague just came into my office room in the middle of the afternoon. After we discussed some work-related issues, he seemed curious before leaving my office room.
“What is that, Der?” my colleague pointed his index finger at the rounded grey object on my desk.
“Ah, kitchen scale, Pak. For weighing my meal and tracking my calories”, I replied with a smile.
“Really? You track your calories in every meal?” he asked again.
I nodded.
He then shook his head, could not believe in my effort to track my calories.
It has been three weeks since I started tracking my calories.
Thanks to Michael Matthews, his book Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body has opened my eyes to the importance of calorie tracking and measuring weight effectively — when it comes to achieving body goals.
There are two habits that I’ve implemented after reading this book.
First, calculate my calories every single day— except when I’m eating at a restaurant. I combine iPhone notes with the Cronometer free app to measure each food I put into my mouth.
Second, measure my weight every three days and calculate in two weeks. So, if I count my weight on 4 February, the next time I measure my weight should be on 7 February, 10 February, and so on. Then, on 19 February, I will calculate my average body weight and reflect.
How do I track my calories?
I’ll give you an example for counting calories of my pre-workout meal:
1 pack of instant oatmeal, 3 dates, and 1 tbsp honey.
Instant oatmeal is easy to calculate because calories per pack are apparent. 231 Kilocalories (Kcal). It’s clearly stated on the back of the product packaging.
For dates, it’s a bit complicated. First, I need to measure 3 dates on a kitchen scale. After I got the exact weight, I had to check the nutrition values on the back of the packaging product. Usually, I get a precise number of calories per 100 g.
If 100g has 296 Kcal, 20g (for 3 dates) would have approximately 59 Kcal.
For honey, because there is no nutrition value information on the packaging product, I follow the estimation on Cronometer. 1 tbsp honey should have approximately 21 Kcal.
So, my pre-workout meal would be approximately 311 Kcal. Then, I jot down this first meal on iPhone notes.
At the end of the day, I gather all the data from my first to last meal. Calculate them to know how many calories I have that day.
This data is really important to me, especially when I reflecting my body weight in the past few days.
For instance, I gained 0,4 kg from 4 February to 7 February. In that period, my average calorie intake was around 2.800 Kcal. While from 16–19 February, my average calorie intake was less than 2.000 Kcal. And I lost 0,9 kg in that period.
For years, I could not resolve a puzzle that swirled in my mind:
“Why am I still skinny? Even though I have eaten a lot of food”, I asked myself.
It wasn’t until I started tracking my calories that I found one possible answer to that question:
Just because I’m eating too much doesn’t mean my calorie intake is high.
I can eat six meals a day, but my calorie intake is lower than 2.000 Kcal, as data showed earlier from 16–19 February 2024.
This realization changed my life, and I can see the other benefits of tracking calories.
I’ve become more mindful of my food choices, which minimizes my indecisive traits when deciding which meat or vegetable I should eat.
Now, I can confidently pick green peas over other vegetables. Or chicken wings over fish. Simply, because they contain higher calories.
And the higher the calories, the better for me, as the person who wants to gain more weight.
