Fit Momma Question: How to Count Calories?

I've been posting my Eat With Me posts for a few weeks now. Two Fit Momma's named Ann asked the same question:

Annie P: I am new to your blog and I am thinking about what I eat. I have no idea what the calorie count is for most things I eat. And since I eat mostly homemade things I don't have a package to go by. How do I figure this out?

Ann: How do you keep such good track of the calories of all you eat? I understand prepackaged stuff- (i.e. bars), and stuff you put together with few ingredients can be easy to figure, but....???

There are a few resources I use in order to count my calories. Here are the top four:

1. Lose It - iPhone app (we use this one the most)

2. As for stuff I make myself, Jared is my number king and will take the time while I'm cooking to add up every single ingredient in the entire dish, then divide it by the servings. He's done this for chocolate chip cookies, enchiladas, my lasagna, and we are doing more and more each week.

From January 2010

Sounds tedious? We love it. We're weird. We both gagged in disbelief when we found out how many calories was in a cup of shortening (1,812! And 205 grams of fat! Ahhhhh! I'm now running around like a crazy woman with my hands waving wildly in the air!). We high five each other when we load 3 cups of spinach on our plate for a whopping 21 calories.

What can I say? It bonds us (see this post).

3. Google it-- I'll just punch in "calories for one medium orange" – 64 calories later, I am in know. If it some obscure dish, I will just try to find something similar.

4. www.thedailyplate.com -- There are a million and one more calorie counting resources online as well.

We eat pretty much the same things after a while, so its not like we are starting from scratch each day. Also, when calorie counting, if I’m just not sure about something, I round up. I’m kidding nobody but myself.

I must also add that I don’t live like this 365 days a year. I do have some fitness goals right now I’m working towards, thus the calorie counting has begun again.

It just plain works.

Send any questions my way, I eat this stuff up (along with my 21 calories of spinach)! Click here.