How to Make Calorie Counting Suck Less

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: calorie counting kind of sucks. The process of tracking every morsel you eat with measuring cups and food scales is the very definition of monotonous and time-consuming. It’s so annoying that at the start of my weight loss journey, I tried to hack it by “eyeballing” my portion sizes at mealtimes.

But after a couple of months, the scale hadn’t budged. Something wasn’t adding up (or rather, things were adding up too much), so I reluctantly started measuring out my portions and logging my foods in an app, just to get a handle on how far off I was.

I was dismayed to learn that I was eating hundreds of calories a day more than I thought I was!

My story is not uncommon. A study by Cornell found that people underestimate how many calories they consume by 20–40%!

So while “guestimating” your portions is a tempting time-saver, chances are it’s not going to yield the results you desire.

But if dragging out a food scale every time you eat sounds too vexing to endure, take heart: I’ve learned a few tricks you can employ to make this process less excruciating.

Use Cronometer

Cronometer is hands down my favorite tool for tracking calories and macros.

Although it has a paid version, you use all the core functions for free. (I’ve been using the free version for a few years and don’t feel the need to upgrade.)

Cronometer is a great place to get started because once you fill out your profile, it will estimate how many calories you should target per day. It also shows your macronutrient targets. (More on macros later.)

It has an extensive database with millions of foods you can find and log easily with a few taps. But my favorite feature is the barcode scanner, which lets you log foods easily by scanning the barcode on the package with your phone’s camera.

The database also keeps track of which foods you regularly log, so it becomes even easier to track after a few days of using it.

Try Intermittent Fasting

The less frequently you eat, the less often you need to log calories.

Although snacking throughout the day has long been touted as the way to speeding up your metabolism, studies have shown there is no objective evidence to support this.

Meanwhile, evidence shows that intermittent fasting can boost your metabolism and facilitate fat loss through its effect on the body’s hormones.

Intermittent fasting is a great way to cut back on snacking, but if it sounds too intimidating, you can start small.

For example, even a 12 hour fast can help curb snacking. Then you can extend by an hour every week until you work up to the ideal length fast for you.

I worked my way up to a 16 hour fast this way, which means I don’t eat between 7 p.m. and 11 a.m. I don’t feel hungry before my first meal because my body has gotten used to the new eating schedule.

Eat the Same Meals Weekly

Sticking with the same few meals every week will help you log faster and stay on track because you aren’t constantly plugging new foods and recipes into the database.

For example, I have one of two breakfasts every single morning. It’s either oatmeal or a Greek yogurt bowl. For lunch, I either have a chicken sandwich or eggs on multigrain toast.

Dinner usually has more variety, but I still stick to the same meals every week to make logging as easy as possible.

Cronometer makes this even easier because you can combine the ingredients of a meal into a “recipe,” and logging the whole meal only takes a couple of taps!

Include Lots of Protein in Every Meal

It’s easy to let protein fall to the wayside in favor of more carb-heavy foods, like bread and pasta. But getting enough protein is crucial to maintaining muscle mass and keeping your organs functioning optimally.

From a calorie-tracking standpoint, protein increases satiety, which means if you get enough of it at mealtimes, you won’t be as tempted to snack between meals (making that whole fewer meals and snacks step that much easier!).

I also find that when I focus on getting enough protein, the other two macros (fat and carbs) naturally fall in line with where they should be. Try to allot 25–35% of your total calories to protein, which studies show can boost metabolism.

I try to get at least 25–30 grams at every meal. Think Greek yogurt, eggs, nuts, fish, legumes, and lean meats.

Load Up on Low-Cal, High-Volume Foods

The only time I allow “guestimating“ my food is when it’s something very low in calories. For example, celery, asparagus, beets, clementines, arugula, cauliflower, and cucumbers are so low in calories that you can get away with a ballpark estimate.

For one thing, you’re going to have a tough time binging on these foods enough to make a significant dent in your calorie budget.

And even if your estimate is off, it won’t matter because the difference in calories will be so minute.

For example, the difference between half a cup of chopped cucumber and a full cup of chopped cucumber is a mere 11 calories.

The other benefit to this tactic is that they are high-volume foods, which means eating them will make you feel full faster even though you haven’t eaten many calories.

Pre-portion as Much as You Can

Sometimes, I’m in a hurry and can’t be bothered to measure things out. I used to grab a bulk bag of cashews to round out my lunch, and instead of digging out the food scale and measuring cup, I would just grab a fistful and call it a quarter cup.

Sound familiar?

The problem is that the perceived “quarter cup” is likely closer to a half cup, which is a difference of nearly 200 calories.

You can eliminate this problem by portioning out your food ahead of time. Take that bag of cashews and separate them into 5 or 6 small containers of ¼ cup each.

You can do this with full meals too. If you’re able to do a little kitchen prep every Sunday to prepare for your week, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and temptation to take shortcuts when logging your food during the busy work week.

This way, you know exactly how many calories each meal consists of, and all you need to do is grab it from the fridge or freezer when it’s time to eat.

Final Thoughts

Using these strategies will alleviate some of the annoyance that comes with counting calories. And after a few weeks, you’ll be able to tell how well your calorie counting is going because one of three things will happen:

1. Your weight will go down, which means you’re eating at a calorie deficit
2. Your weight will stay the same, which means you’re eating as much as you’re burning
3. Your weight will go up, which means you’re eating more calories than you’re burning.

Remember that even if you count calories accurately, it’s not a perfect science. There are numerous biological factors at play that affect your metabolism. (For example, your hormones and microbiome.)

But you can use the data you gain through calorie counting to tweak your intake until the scale starts moving in the right direction.

And calorie counting doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Once you get used to how much you are eating on any given day, you can ease off measuring and logging everything.

If you stop making progress, you can simply go back to logging any time to get back on track.

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Originally published in In Fitness and In Health on Medium.