I Tracked EVERYTHING I Ate For 100 Days. Here's What I Found.

Tracking calories can be one of the most eye-opening experiences in your fat loss journey.

I've been coaching people for over 20 years to use calorie tracking as part of their way of building muscle and losing fat, but I haven't tracked calories continuously since I was doing Fitness competitions a few years ago.

So I challenged myself to track everything for a 100 days and I was reminded about a lot of useful tips that I'm going to share with you.

I'm also going to give you a little peek into my way of eating for year round leanness.

Why I Tracked My Calories 

I'd recently started The Lean & Strong Academy, which is my online coaching program for fat loss.

I start off that program by asking members to track their calories and macros for a few weeks, so I really wanted to keep my advice as accurate and top of mind as possible.

I didn't try to change anything that I was eating.

Nothing really changed about my body composition or my weight over the 100 days that I was doing this. I'm not trying to do anything right now in terms of muscle or fat loss. So it was really just my regular day-to-day. I did notice things going slightly up and down depending on how many treats I was having on the weekends for instance.

But really I was in maintenance. So I was looking at my maintenance calories and my general macros.

At the end I'm going to share some interesting things that I noticed about the way that I eat in order to balance things over time.

I normally don't track my calories or macros because I don't need to at this stage. And that's a point that I hope most people get to eventually.

Calorie Tracking Mistakes

There are a lot of ways that calorie tracking can go wrong and I want to make sure that you don't make those mistakes.

Don't Use The Setup That The App Gives You

The first thing that you need to know is that you don't want to use the setup that the app is giving to you.

In my case I was using myfitnesspal.

That's simply because it's free. I only use the free version and that's generally what I've used with clients and members over the years. Because it's the most popular one right now at least.

Any of the other tracking apps are probably very similar.

Although the calorie estimates to achieve a calorie deficit for weight loss or a calorie surplus for muscle gain could be okay for you they might not.

So it's actually better just to start working with the numbers that you have yourself.

If you're recording like I did just for that period of time you're going to figure out what your maintenance calories are. In order to lose weight then you're going to have to reduce your calories slightly or increase your physical activity.

Because of all the challenges with calorie tracking which I'm going to talk about throughout this video If you start aiming for a particular number right away you might not get the results that you're looking for.

DON'T Add Your Exercise To The App

Definitely do not add in your exercise and use that exercise to buy yourself extra calorie.

You can track your exercise and keep it somewhere in a journal.

You should have a program that you're following anyway.

Calorie burn with exercise is generally overestimated so you're only adding to the inaccuracy of the calories in calories out process.

Log Everything!

In order for the tracking to be as accurate as possible, make sure you log everything.

That means if you take a couple of bites off your child's plate. Or you're testing while you're cooking, then you need to track it.

I know it can be tricky sometimes especially if you're not just having one apple, 80 calories.

Most foods that we eat as a meal are a combination of items and you really want to break it down as much as you can.

There's a place for instance where I've been a few times to have a sushi burrito. I think they do have some online information and there are some entries there so if the entry seems realistic that you can probably use it.

I'm going to talk about how you can determine if it's a realistic entry later on.

Break Down Meals Into Their Component Parts

But it's usually is a better idea to break it down to the component parts.

There's a salad place that I order from probably once a week once every two weeks.

I just put everything in individually and I tend to have the same thing once in a while I'll add something or take something away. But you can record all of these types of foods that you're regularly eating as either like a recipe or my meal so that you know exactly what you're having. I've got that in there as this particular salad and each time I have that one I just put the whole thing in.

It takes a little bit of time to set it up but then once you've got it ready then it becomes easier over time.

Use The Barcode Scanner

This is a really helpful tool whenever you have anything in a package.

A lot of the foods are going to come up there exactly how they should and then you just enter it into that meal and you're good to go.

Be Aware Of Scanning Errors

But be very careful to check the entries as well.

Because most of the stuff that I scanned came up just fine. Occasionally the serving sizes were different for some reason. And then I found some entries that didn't match.

They weren't even the right product. Or what came up on the app was not the same calories and macros as I actually saw on the label. You always want to double check for scanning issues. And I always think it's better to go with what you actually see on that label. Make sure you check the serving size that's always a good idea and then you know exactly how much you should be inputting.

This milk that I use comes up just fine this yogurt is fine then I noticed this package of Lindt chocolates does not come up correctly.

So I had to find another entry where it made sense for what I saw on the label.

What If You Can't Find The Right Entry?

If you don't find anything that sounds right you can actually add that in as well.

Try to avoid this if possible because it is a little bit tedious. But there are so many foods in there that it's hard to believe that it's never come up before.

But people may have put it in before and put it in incorrectly or they only put it in with calories and there weren't any macros in there.

Make Sure You Check Macros Too

That's another thing that you want to be checking. Even if the calories come up correctly make sure that it also contains the carbs the fat the protein and the fiber.

All those values need to match up.

Calorie Tracking Inaccuracies

Now you should know that in the US for instance labels are allowed to be off by 20%. That's the FDA that regulates that.

In Canada, where I am, the Canadian food inspection agency handles labeling and they also allow the label to be off by 20%.

So if you see 100 calories on the label it could be 80 calories or it could be 120.

That's just one inaccuracy of calorie counting.

You're just doing a best estimate and for the most part if you're tracking everything carefully it's not going to matter.

Don't Get Too Obsessive About The Numbers

Don't get too obsessive about the numbers.

Just look at how they're going up or down over time. That's what's really going to matter.

Check The Calories And Macros For Whole Foods

I mentioned the labels but when you're entering regular whole foods as well make sure to check the entries so that they are realistic and make sense.

Now for me having used these apps for a long time for tracking it seems kind of obvious what would be realistic, but sometimes it can be hard to tell especially if you don't know a lot about food yet.

That's one of the reasons that I think that calorie tracking and macro tracking is so useful because you learn so much more about your food.

Just because a food is healthy doesn't mean that you can eat it in unlimited quantities.

Some people do believe that but it's not true.

There are a lot of calorie dense healthy foods like avocado and nuts. If you actually look at the calories and macros they are quite high. Maybe much more than you expected.

Managing Fibre Intake

I've actually had to watch out for fiber because I have IBS and if I have too much fiber then I find that it makes my condition worse. So I have to make sure that I have a reasonable range of fiber but not go too high.

This often happened to me when I was preparing for fitness competitions because it's a lot of vegetables that you're supposed to eat to fill you up. But often it has a lot of fiber and not the most digestible fiber especially if you're going raw.

It can be upsetting to your digestion if you go overboard with fiber.

Most people need more fiber in their diet we generally say 14 G of fiber per th000 calories so if you consume 2,000 calories then 28 G of fiber you might be surprised how high something like avocados are in fiber.

I can't have a whole avocado because that is so much fiber all at once once and it's not that comfortable for me.

Check For Macros

Occasionally when you're entering a food into the app you might find that the calories seem okay but there is absolutely no macros in there at all. It might say zero carbs, zero fat, zero protein and you're looking at a doughnut. That's clearly not correct.

I've had clients in the past who have said, "Oh, I I picked this entry because it looked good."

Or they didn't notice it first. If you don't have enough familiarity with food yet it's a good idea to just Google it and then have like a second check.

How much fiber?

How much fat is in an avocado?

I keep using that example.

I love avocados!

But it's kind of interesting because it's quite high in calories, pretty high in fat and fiber.

If In Doubt About Foods, Google It!

If you just Google those things for an avocado you'll see what your entry should probably be on the app.

You can do that with whatever food that you're trying to look up.

Is this realistic?

Does it make sense?

Obviously you're just doing this at the beginning of your tracking process because once you get the right entries in there for all the foods that you regularly eat it's super easy.

You just keep repeating over and over again.

You're using the same entry on myfitnesspal.

Are Green Ticks Better?

I found the green ticks are more likely to be correct but they're not always.

So check the entries even if they've got a green tick beside them saying they're supposed to be verified.

And definitely don't just choose the entry that you like.

If you see a doughnut and it says 200 calories and then you see another doughnut that says 300 calories don't pick the one that's 200 just because you want to keep it lower.

Because your body knows what it is. Just because you don't enter it on the app doesn't mean that it's not going to affect you that way.

So I actually recommend that if you're trying to lose weight if anything overestimate.

If you're trying to put on size muscle, try the lower values. Then you're giving a slightly larger margin of error whichever direction you want that to be.

Track With A Consistent Method

It's also really important that you track with a consistent method.

Raw Vs Cooked Food

People always ask me about raw versus cooked food, particularly when we're talking about meat or vegetables. Obviously food is going to change through cooking because it's going to lose water. Therefore it's more dense.

It's not actually that important which one you use as long as you're consistent with the same system.

I know some of my clients have always preferred to do raw meat and then they'll kind of divide it up based on the raw meat package. That makes it easier for them to know what the portion sizes are.

I don't like to weigh raw meat so I prefer using the cooked entries and just knowing the weight of those.

Be Mindful Of Serving Sizes

When we're talking about serving sizes as well measuring cups can be a good idea.

Particularly if you're cooking with a lot of different elements or you're just putting together something like nuts, where it's a calorie dense item that you're having a smaller serving size.

Weighing is the most accurate because then you're not sort of constrained by the volume that you're stuffing into that container.

Be very careful with things like peanut butter. People are shocked at the actual serving size of peanut butter. A level tablespoon is what the measure is. A lot of people will just heap up as much peanut butter as they possibly can and consider that one tablespoon. It is not!

You could be doubling your calorie intake for that particular food.

Adding Calories For Oils

Most oils are 120 calories per tablespoon. Just fat.

That's actually a handy shortcut when you have food that you're eating out somewhere and you just see that it's a little bit oily. Then you can just add some general oil.

I often will add a couple of tablespoons to something that looks like it has a bit of oil in there.

Sometimes I'll add more if it looks greasier.

Using The Recipes Function

For foods that you regularly eat or things that you make, you can use the recipes function.

I found it quite useful. I tend to have the same matcha latte every morning. So I use a similar amount of milk. And then I mix in some collagen. Then I add the matcha, which is pretty low in calories anyway. Usually a little bit of maple syrup as well.

I have that recipe made up so each morning I just put in Matcha Latte. That was easy enough.

You can create your entire breakfast that way. If your breakfast is exactly the same you can just put in breakfast. And you can set it up with all the foods that you normally include and then just add breakfast each day.

So it makes it really really easy if there are recipes.

I know that my mom makes banana muffins and I kind of figured out how much she put in there and I can just add one banana muffin when I need it.

The recipe section makes it really easy to add foods that you often eat. My mom also makes this really great cheesecake and I know whether I've had a slice or a slice and a half or two full slices so I also had to add that a couple of times.

What If You Can't Find A Food?

What happens if you can't find the item? You literally search and try to put in every way of describing that item that food that you can think of and nothing comes up.

I had one item that came up this way. There's a local tea place and they have something called cheese top tea. I can taste that there's sugar in there. Then I can taste that there's fat in there.

And it is supposed to be cheese. So cheese we do think of some fat in there in this case it's like a sweet cheese.

This is delicious, by the way!

I ended up entering it just as a cheese and then added a few teaspoons of sugar as well so that I could account for what was definitely a fairly sweet thing.

I have some experience with doing this so I have an idea of where foods should fit in terms of calories and macros but if you're new to this, Google is your friend.

See if you can find something similar and estimates online that are going to help you.

Log As You Go

This is really important.

Log as you go.

If you try to go to the end of the day and then remember what you ate you are going to miss something.

And it's going to take you much longer than if you have breakfast and then record your breakfast have lunch and then record your lunch have dinner and record your dinner.

It's not always convenient and easy to do that if you're eating out. Perhaps the other shortcut there is to take a quick picture of that food. I mean it's not that unusual lots of people take pictures of their food. We know that right. So take a picture of your food and then you can look at it later and then get a better estimate. You will hopefully notice the things that are in there if it's something that's composed of a lot of different foods.

A couple of times I didn't finish all of the day entries and I had to go back and I just found it really tedious and time consuming definitely took longer than just doing it on the spot. And you're less likely to be accurate.

Protein Goals And Fibre Goals

One thing I also noticed is that as you're going through the app will tell you if you've hit your protein goal or your fiber goal. And that's useful I think in general.

Certain other messages like your sugar goal is to stay under whatever. And that came up for me yeah a few times.

Your Sugar Goal

I never set a sugar goal but the app sometimes sets up a goal for you based on the total number of calories that you're eating.

So I added an apple and the app popped up with your sugar goal is to stay under 74g of sugar. I'm like well okay but I want to have an apple and I don't think that's a problem.

If you've been following me for a while you know that it also has fiber and phytonutrients and stuff that makes it healthy. Eat more fruit, not less fruit and don't worry about the kind of messages that are not really helping you.

Added sugar of course that's in packaged foods, you want to keep that to a lower level but don't try to avoid eating blueberries later on in the day just because the app already told you you ate your sugar goal.

Because that's just silly!

Nobody every got fat because they ate too many blueberries.

Eating Out 

I wanted to include some advice for when you're eating out or when you're perhaps going somewhere to a party or a friend's place where you don't know exactly how the food is prepared.

Some restaurants do have calories and macros and that's really helpful as a guideline.

But of course from day to day those foods are going to vary.

If feels like you're getting a really large serving and the calories that they're showing are pretty low then you might want to adjust up and just say it's like a 1 and 1 half portion.

You can do fractions or decimals here so it's not hard to adjust that on the app.

What To Do When You Don't Know What's In The Food

During the time that I was tracking my husband did a barbecue.

Several actually.

But this one particular example I wanted to use because I know that he was making a chicken breast and then there was a little bit of sauce on there.

So I estimated a little bit of sauce.

Adding Oils

But I also knew that the vegetables and the chicken breast had a little bit of olive oil as well.

I added about a tablespoon to account for that slight amount of oil. When you see something that looks quite greasy.

Take out food or restaurant food can be like that.

You should (if you're trying to lose weight) try to minimize the amount of that that you're eating.

But you can also account for it with the tracking by adding extra tablespoons of oil at 120 calories per tablespoon.

Doesn't really matter which oil it is they're all about the same.

Adding Sauces

You can just add a generic barbecue sauce or something like that if it seems like it's a sweet sauce or a tomato based sauce you can add that as well.

Sauces are really important.

If you have a roast chicken but then you're putting tons of sauce on it like you can add another 200-300 calories.

If you're doing that for your vegetables as well and your starches.

So make sure that everything is included.

There are some general sauces in the app so whether it's an oyster sauce or a seafood sauce all those things are in there. Even if it's not exactly the same one. Try to figure out what type of sauce it is and how many calories and macros it might have.

Track Portions Accurately

Make sure to track portions accurately use a food scale or measuring cups.

Later on in your tracking when you're in maintenance mode you may be able to get away with just eyeballing things but at the beginning it's really important to get an accurate idea of what food portions look like.

What does 30 g of protein in chicken breast form look like?

Measure it out to be sure.

Measuring Calorie Dense Foods

I tend to always measure nuts because they're very calorie dense and I can easily overeat them.

Track Macros Too

Don't just look at calories.

Pay attention to protein and fiber too.

Should You Reduce Carbs?

When it comes to macros, many people fear carbs.

But unless carbs are taking you over your calorie goal, they aren't an issue.

In fact, they give you the energy to exercise and that's what's helping you with that calories out.

You want to track total carbs.

Don't use net carbs that you'll see on some labels.

Fat has nine calories per gram.

Carbs and protein have four calories per gram.

Alcohol has 7 calories per gram.

You want to include that as well.

Balancing Your Macros

Protein and fiber will make a difference but it doesn't really matter if you prefer a little bit more fat or a little bit more carbs.

It's really down to preference.

And whether or not having too many carbs is increasing your cravings for more carbs.

Should You Track Calories And Macros FOREVER

There are a small percentage of people who want to track their calories for the long term but most of us find the process a bit tedious and don't want to do it forever.

I think it's a great education process that most people should at least try out for a few weeks.

It gives you some food education which you'll take with you when you're done tracking.

I did tracking for a little while last year just to see if I could hit my fiber target. That's all I was really looking at.

Some of my clients have used it just to make sure that they're hitting their protein goals because they knew that that was a weakness for them.

Do Macros Matter?

While calories belong at the top for weight loss or muscle gain, protein and fiber will also have an impact.

Particularly for fat loss.

So if you're already pretty lean and trying to tighten things up a little bit, macros can make some difference there as well.

Focusing on lean protein and fiber are good habits to base your nutrition plan around.

So eventually you won't have to track anymore.

Unless you really, really want to.

Building A Meal Plan

Eventually you're going to want to start to develop a meal plan for yourself.

Most of us eat the same things over and over again.

It certainly helps to keep you on track.

Studies have shown that people who eat the same things day in and day out are more likely to be successful with fat loss.

It doesn't have to be exactly the same but the same structure in general.

Then a certain amount for treats.

If you're not tracking it certainly helps to be eating the same things in the same quantity. Then you pretty much know what you're getting anyway.

What I Discovered While Tracking Calories & Macros

Here are a few interesting things I wanted to share with you about how I eat normally.

I try to keep the same general format for my meals.

I eat the same things consistently.

I start my meals with protein, probably have a starch like bread, potatoes, or sweet potatoes.

My Breakfast

Then I add one to two vegetables generally fruit, berries and maybe a banana as well with breakfast.

Sometimes I'll also have oatmeal with yogurt or bread with Tahini or peanut butter or avocado.

In the morning other times I don't have that much of an appetite so I just have that matcha latte.

So the way that I do that up makes about 28 g of protein and then if I add a little bit with the bread that's about 4 g of protein.

My Calorie Range

When I tracked for 100 days the calories were set up on the app as 2,200 so I just kept them that way. Some days I went a bit under, some days I went over.

But since I wasn't trying to change anything didn't really matter.

It was just interesting to see where I was approximately.

The lowest calories that I had was 1,424.

That was on a day when I was suffering from pretty bad acid reflux and heartburn so I didn't have much of an appetite. I could only tolerate certain foods.

Now the higher calories were not surprisingly generally on the weekends. When I was eating out and having more treats over the years.

I found it very common with my clients that they're eating well in the level that would be a calorie deficit during the week and and then going over on the weekend so they end up in maintenance.

Not losing any weight. At least that's how they start off until I fix it for them.

My highest total was 3,100 calories. I was at my mom's for lunch with her delicious food and special cheesecake. Then my husband and I went out to dinner that evening and we had guacamole with tortillas and sweet potato mash and black miso cod. Which was absolutely delicious!

Then a few other things. So there are a bunch of appetizers and I put that all in there.

And the day's total was over 3,000 calories!

Eating Out Vs Eating At Home

Things definitely look different when I'm eating out compared to when I'm eating at home.

Food is very simple at home.

It's always that same base that I mentioned with protein, starch, and then some vegetables at the end.

I tend to reserve things like rice (yes, white rice!) and noodles for when I'm having food delivery or eating out.

That's usually a couple of times a week that we do that.

Either going out or having food delivery to our home. It might be Sushi or some Thai food or dim sum. Those are kind of our most common delivery foods.

Why I Don't Normally Track Calories

I've basically got myself in a situation where I know the structure of most of my meals. Then generally I'm fairly careful when I'm eating out not to overdo it.

I just indulge in a small amount of each of the foods that I really enjoy. I keep reminding myself (and this is something that I talk about a lot) that I will have another chance to have delicious food like this again.

It's not the last time I'll eat this.

If I'm full I try to stop.

Of course, it's not perfect. Sometimes I do finish the meal and realize that it was a little bit too much. But for the most part I try to eat in moderation and enjoy all the foods that I love.

If you're sick of fad diets and you want to put together a nutrition plan that helps you lose fat, but still enjoy the foods that you love, check out The Lean & Strong Academy.

I can help.

Ivana Chapman