How on earth can one calculate the amount of calories in a meal that is not prepared from a recipe, but from whatever I have in my own kitchen. I LOVE to cook. I know the food I cook is healthy. But now that I'm starting to count calories more strictly I find that it's nearly impossible to calculate the calories in the food I prepare at home.

It's not always easy, but there are a lot of websites that help. One of the best I've found is www.calorieking.com because you can look up just about any food you can think of (and it even has most fast food and popular restaurant items, too).

I've been keeping track of calories for almost 2 years now, but I find that just counting calories doesn't do too much if you don't make changes in your diet because of it. There are days I'll see that I "accidentally" ate 3,500 calories, but if I just see it and don't do anything about it and eat 3,500 the next 5 days, too, it doesn't do me much good...

I hear ya. Just being aware is good. I find that if I deprive myself too much than I end up giving up.
Another issue is my schedule. I work till 6 and then go to the gym until around 8 or 8:30. By the time I'm home and dinner is prepared, it's around 9. As far as I see it, there is no way around my eating dinner late. I just make a huge effort to have smaller portions.

Just gotta stick to the nutritional information labels on the ingredients you use and be sparing on things like oils (remember there are 9 calories per gram of fat vs 4 calories for a gram of protein and carbohydrate)

Hey Liz, just curious... Do you try not to eat late because you're hungrier when you do, you just don't like to (like you have trouble sleeping when you do it), or because you've heard bad things about eating late? There used to be a myth going around that eating late is bad for weight loss. But having visited Argentina many times (I have family there), I can tell you that 9 is their normal dinner time (on visits over there I've eaten dinner as late as 10, 11, and even midnight on a couple occasions!) and the people there are toothpick thin. As long as your daily calories are at a good number, you can eat at any time. If it's because you're hungrier at 9 than you would be if you ate at 6 or 7, those "100 calorie packs" before your workout might hold you over. Just my two cents .

I try not to eat after 9 because I usually go to bed around 11. I've heard that one should eat 4 hours before bedtime.

And Nick, thanks for the info. I try to use my grill as much as possible because it requires very little oil.

Hey, Liz!

I have the same tight schedule (which is the reason I gained weight at all in the first place, heh) but I solve the mealtime issue like this: instead of having breakfast/lunch/dinner and snacks, I eat six times a day, but smaller meals, with the exception of breakfast. It might look something like this ->

07:00 - Breakfast
10:00 - Snack
13:00 - Lunch (half the size a 'normal' lunch would be)
16:00 - The rest of the lunch (to simplify counting calories, you can just divide your lunch portion in half)
18:00 - Dinner (half the size a 'normal' dinner would be)
20:30 (or whenever you get home from the gym) - rest of dinner.

This requires hauling 2 packed meals around, and preparing lunch and dinner the day before. The plus for me is that I feel much more well-balanced before the workout, and I never really get hungry.

About the calories - I mean, why is it difficult to count them? I usually get an exact number, and I cook all my food from scratch. (I love cooking too, and hardly ever use recipes.) With good digital kitchen scales, you can't go wrong!

Marcos: Argentinians, like the Spanish, eat awesome food - I doubt their relative slimness has to do with anything other than their dietary choices. They're getting more and more obese as their food culture changes - and it's quite logical that you shouldn't eat a large meal right before bed, when you think about it.