WEIGHT LOSS
An Easy, Half-Assed Way to Track Calories Just Enough to Lose Weight
Life is too short for MyFitnessPal and weighing stuff
Counting calories is a great way to track your food intake and lose weight. It’s also a huge pain in the ass.
I hate the idea of losing weight having to be at the forefront of my mind each day as I diligently weigh portions, scan things into my phone and track every morsel of food that enters my mouth.
So I found a way to hit my target calories and macronutrient split for fat loss each day, by only doing about 10 minutes of work on Google once, instead of wasting my life on MyFitnessPal.
I’ve split it up into three phases, so let’s jump in…
Phase One — Know Your Numbers
Find out what calories and macros split is ideal for you at your age, activity level and goals. There are various calculators online, or if you’re on FB Messenger you can use this free Calculator Chatbot I built.
That will tell you how many calories to eat each day from Protein, Carbs and Fat.
For example when I use the calculator for myself, with a goal of Losing Weight, it tells me to have:
2248 total kcal, consisting of 185g of Protein, 237g of Carbs, 62g of Fat.
**Note that these are ballpark figures. I’m not going to stress if I’m 150 kcals out here and there, or 20g out in any of those macros — being aware and aiming for those numbers is the important part.**
But now what? How does that all translate to the meals I eat each day. What can I eat?
Phase Two — Track Your Standard Meals… Except Dinner
Take 10 minutes to calculate the calories and macros of your regular breakfasts and lunches by:
- Looking on the packaging;
- Using Cronometer (it’s free, MyFitnessPal is paid); or
- Just Google things like “calories and macros in 200g Greek Yogurt”, etc.
Calories and macros for breakfasts and lunches are easy to calculate as we eat the same couple of options most days, and they’re made up of a couple of ingredients.
For dinners, we’ll just wing it, I’ll explain why and how in a sec.
We’re about to dash through lots of numbers, but it will make sense don’t worry.
Let’s start with breakfast
For me that’s 3 eggs and a slice of toast. Using online tools that’s:
350 cals — 21 fat, 21 protein, 17 carbs
So after breakfast I know I still have 1898 calories to play with (164g protein, 220g carbs and 41g fat).
I work out in the morning, and have a protein shake afterwards, that’s 2 scoops of whey powder, so 234 calories (5g fat, 4.5g carbs, 44.5g protein).
OK Onto Lunch
Coming up to lunchtime I have:
1664 calories left — 119.5g protein, 215.5g carbs, 36g fat).
I’ll have a mix of protein, carbs and vegetables for lunch.
Other than avocado most veggies are low calorie, mostly water, and we have wiggle room here so the calories in my cucumber slices are pretty academic, so don’t bother calculating vegetable/fruit calories.
Let’s say I fry 250g of lean ground beef, a pouch of microwave rice, some veggies, soy sauce and sriracha. I love that lunch ;-)
That’s another 678 cals (14.5g fat, 60.5g protein, 70g carbs) off my daily totals.
Where Does That Leave Us For Dinner?
After lunch I have 986 calories available to eat between mid-afternoon and bedtime.
Specifically I’ve 59g protein, 145g carbs, and 21.5g fat left.
I can use all that up in one big Dad-Sized Dinner, or save some for an evening snack, and I’ll still hit my targets calories and macros and lose a little weight. Nice.
In this example I’ll just have a big dinner, if I can manage to load up my plate before my teenage sons get their hands on the serving spoons.
Phase Three — Winging It With Dinner
When it comes to dinner we’re not going to try and calculate the calories and macros exactly, because dinners have more ingredients, and life is too short.
But luckily tracking things up until dinner tells us what kind of macro split we need at dinner to approximately hit our targets.
Remember I’ve 59g protein, 145g carbs, and 21.5g fat left.
That tells me I’m looking at a dinner consisting of twice as many grams of carbs as protein (they both have 4 kcals per gram), and relatively low fat.
So for planning what to have for dinner I know that:
- Creamy, fat-dense sauces are out,
- Fatty meats are out,
- Pasta, potatoes, bread, rice, wraps are all great,
- Lean meats like chicken or turkey, or fish are also great,
- Veggies are free calories too so load those up.
Thinking about it in those terms means I can easily come up with what to have for dinner, and my approximate portion sizes.
If I’m having wraps, like fajitas, I can have:
- 200g of meat (60ish grams of protein),
- 3–4 wraps, but…
- I need to hold back on having too much cheese or sour cream/dips to keep fat intake low.
If I’m having pasta, like a bolognese, and I’ve used 750g of lean beef in the sauce, I can have:
- a quarter of the pot of sauce (60ish grams of protein plus some carbs), and
- 3 cups of cooked pasta, but
- I can’t go nuts on the parmesan or garlic bread (not enough fat grams left).
Embrace Half-Assed Calorie Tracking to Lose Weight
We can track calories a little, just one time, for the earlier meals in our day.
That means we know what dinners need to look like and consist of in a ballpark sense, to bring us in close to our target calories and macros, and lose the weight we want.
For me, this has been a game-changer, and has helped me lose fat whenever I want, without it having to be a constant ‘thing’ I’m tracking with apps and calculators.
A little bit of knowledge is power though, so taking the time to calculate your target calories and macros (online or with my Messenger chatbot) will finally put YOU in control of your weight.
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