Random 60: Watch those calories! | Favorite on Viddler.
Whether you are dieting or not it is always good practice to make sure you watch what you’re taking in. Calories can creep up on you. There are more calories in everyday food than most people would guess. In today’s Random 60 I use the extreme example of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to make a point – that there is a crap load of calories in most food you’d pick up off of the shelf and whoof down before even looking at the nutrition information.
Here are some sites that will either help you track what you’re eating, or generally enlighten you as to how many calories are in some everyday foods.
- If you have an iPhone, try Lose It. It is an application that can help you track your food intake day-to-day.
- If you’re hungry, do not click this link. This Is Why You’re Fat is a Web site that shows you delicious food (read: not food that is generally a good idea to look at if you’re trying to lose weight).
- SugarStacks is a Web site that shows you the number of sugar cubes found in every day foods. Neat idea.
Have you ever been surprised by the number of calories in food compared to the number of calories you thought was in that food? And, do you know any good resources to add to this list?
http://calorieking.com has a very extensive database of foods. They have an app too (has a free demo period I believe).
Good vid, Colin. Create awareness about our portions. Remember that one serving of Ben & Jerry’s is about 1/2 a cup.
Just wanted to remind everyone that there is a little more to nutrition than just counting calories though. It’s important to understand the quality of calories that you are eating.
You can have 2000 calories a day, but if they’re all from sugars and fats then your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs. Especially if your exercising or working out.
Some people reduce their calorie intake too much and it makes their bodies go into “starvation mode”. That’s what happens when your body thinks it’s in trouble and actually stores more fat making you gain weight!
Calorie King as Mike mentioned is the most extensive resource for nutrition facts that I’ve ever used. But, I don’t think they have an iPhone app, but I would pay for it if they did.
Lose It to me is hard to use on a daily basis and doesn’t have enough of a database to be used everyday without manually typing in calories every time.