How to Start Tracking Calories
With so many “maintenance” and TDEE calculators available, it can be hard to determine your calorie maintenance, right?
Especially when those calculators allow for a 400-calorie confidence interval, it may say your maintenance is 2,000 calories, but that means that it is somewhere between 1600 and 2400 calories = essentially useless).
Follow these steps in the next slides to easily find your maintenance calories. First, you’ll need a few tools in your tool belt:
A food tracking app (we love Cronometer)
A weight trends app (HappyScale for iOS or Libra for Android)
A food scale
A bathroom scale
Step 1: Start Tracking
Just start tracking for at least two weeks. Don’t change anything you’re already doing; just track your food daily (even if it’s inaccurate; this is a skill you’ll build). Remove any calorie targets, and just start quantifying your food intake.
You can’t truly determine what your body needs until you know what you're eating daily.
This step is arguably the easiest yet most important step of this process.
Also, start weighing yourself daily. Yep - daily. Track your weight daily and record it in your weight trends app of choice.
Step 2a: Assess Weight Trends
Now that you have two full weeks of data, what does your weight trend chart look like?
Example of a flat trendline in HappyScale app. The blue dots and lines represent individual weigh-ins. We want to look at those, plus the overall trend to make our decision.
Are you trending downwards?
Take your average calories consumed in the last 2 weeks, and set a target of roughly 100-200 calories higher than the average.
Are you trending upwards?
Take your average calories consumed in the last 2 weeks, and set a target of roughly 100-200 calories lower than the average.
Are you trending flat?
Take your average calories consumed in the last 2 weeks, set that as your current calorie target, and try to hit it consistently +/- 100 calories.
Step 2B: Assess Protein
What is your daily protein intake? What is your weekly average? Eventually, you want to get up to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (or closer to 0.7/g per pound of body weight for those who have 30+ pounds to lose).
If you’re averaging quite short of that currently, stair-step up 20 to 30 grams every 2 to 3 weeks until you reach 1 gram per pound of body weight.
For example: If your starting daily average is 60 grams, set your protein target at 80-90 grams, and try to hit that for the next two weeks.
Step 3: Repeat
Track for two more weeks at your new targets.
Then repeat the assessments from step 2 as needed (note: if you feel more comfortable assessing every 4 weeks, that’s fine, just keep a minimum of 2 weeks between adjustments).
Optional Step 4: Find the top of maintenance
Once you’ve consistently trended flat for 2-4 weeks (and had started with either a trending down or flat trend line), then increase calories in 50-100 calorie increments until your trendline steadily increases, then back down to the calorie level you were last flat at (aka, the top of your maintenance range).
Helpful Tips
While the steps are simple, execution can sometimes be tough! Here are a few tips to get started:
Let go of perfection getting in the way of logging food. At a local Italian restaurant? Pick a close equivalent from Olive Garden.
In a rush and not sure how to log your meal out. Snap a photo of it and try it in the morning
Zoom out on the scale data. By weighing every day, you’re taking the power of that number not ruling you and looking at trends instead
