How to Keep Track of Daily Calories

A calorie is simply a unit of energy. The number of calories in a food is the amount of energy stored within its fat, protein and carbohydrate molecules. You can maintain, lose or gain body weight depending on the difference between your caloric intake and the amount of calories that you burn. Tracking your daily calorie intake is essential to reaching a goal weight.

Things You'll Need

• Scale
• Calculator
• Measuring Cup
• Journal

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Instructions

• 1

  Plan your meals ahead of time. Make a grocery list and purchase foods to suit your meal plan. Read the nutrition labels on all prepared foods that you purchases and use a source such as Self Nutrition Data to determine the amount of calories in the foods that you prepare.

• 2

  Use a scale or measuring cup to measure the portion sizes of the foods that you are planning to consume, to be sure that the serving size referenced on the nutrition label or your source for nutrition information, matches the amount that you are actually consuming.

• 3

  Document all meals and snacks, both planned and unplanned, in a journal. Record the portion size and the amount of calories in the foods that you consume. At the end of the day or the week, tally your daily calorie intake.

• 4

  Monitor your daily physical activity and exercise and keep a record of it in your journal, to track the amount of calories that you burn. You are constantly burning calories, even while you sleep. The more vigorous the activity, the more calories you will burn.

• 5

  Use a calorie calculator to determine the amount of calories that you have burned, daily. The average person burns 2,000 calories per day, with moderate exercise, however this varies by person, depending on various factors, such as weight, sex and age. There are an assortment of calorie counters on the Internet that can help you determine the amount of calories that you burn.

• 6

  Compare the amount of calories that you have consumed to the amount of calories that you have burned. If the amounts are very close, you are consuming enough calories to maintain your weight. If the amount is significantly less, you are creating a calorie deficit and are eating the right amount of food to lose weight, however if you are consuming a lot more than you are burning, you are eating to gain weight.