Nutrition Health Center

Counting Calories with Your Computer

By Terry Dunkle*

This page offers a valuable pointers on choosing tools for counting calories

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nting calories is the most effective way to lose weight, because a food's calorie content is a measure of the amount of fat your body will store if it can't burn all the calories off. Comparing your calorie intake with your calorie needs is the first step in precisely controlling your weight.

Easy Formula for Counting Calories

A pound of body weight is equivalent to 3500 calories. This means that if you eat 3500 calories less than your body needs, you'll lose a pound.

You can shun those 3500 calories over the course of a month, a week, or just a few days. Losing more than two pounds a week is inadvisable, however, because a swift loss is likely to be temporary.

Before Counting Calories...

...obviously you've got to figure out how many calories to count. How many are you eating now, and how many fewer should you eat in order to reach your goal weight on your target date?

You can do the math yourself, of course, using the 3500-calorie rule above, but it's a lot easier to use the calculator below.

Handy Calculator for Counting Calories

This calculator uses standard equations to find the number of calories you should eat to reach your goal on schedule.

Based on 20 years of research by DietPower, Inc., this calculator is accurate to 5 percent for most users. (It's not for people who are pregnant or have metabolic disorders. Always see a doctor before starting a diet.)

Birth Date

Sex

Tobacco user?

Height

Weight

Goal Weight

Target Date

Email Address

- -

?

ft. in.

lbs.

lbs. ?

- - ?

?

Close Goal Weight
Your Goal Weight is the weight you want to achieve. (If it's a lot different from your current weight, you might want to set a goal that represents only the first step. Even a 10-percent weight loss will significantly improve your health.)
Close Target Date
Plan on losing no more than a pound or two per week.  Otherwise, you may eat too little for good nutrition and your weight loss may be temporary.
Close Lactating?
If you are breastfeeding, check this box and the calculator will add calories for producing milk.
Close Tobacco User?
Nicotine speeds your metabolism, making you burn calories faster. (That's why people who quit smoking gain weight.) Check this box if you average more than one cigarette, one-half pipeful, one-quarter of a cigar, or one dip of snuff or chewing tobacco per day.
Close Email Address
Once a month, DietPower will send you the most important nutrition news of the past 30 days, selected by national award-winning editors covering hundreds of medical journals. You can cancel this free, no-obligation service anytime with a single click. We produce it only to promote our weight-loss software. It won't put you on other mailing lists—We're Not That Kind of Company™.

Counting Calories Made Easy

You don't have to read labels and count calories with a pencil and paper. It's much easier on your computer.

Besides websites for counting calories online, you can find more powerful programs to download and install on your own PC for greater privacy. Downloadable programs also offer faster performance than websites, and usually cost less than $50.

To Do More Than Counting Calories...

...choose a program that also tracks your intake of other nutrients, as well as calories burned in exercise.

One downloadable calorie counter, called DietPower®, also tracks 33 nutrients and helps you choose which of your favorite foods are best for preventing heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and other nutrition-related maladies.

DietPower, Inc., founder and national award-winning medical writer.