Re: New - how do I keep track of calories?

[Guest guest]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 01:27:39PM -0000, jessicadavida wrote:

> I am just starting the CRON diet. How do I keep track of calories?

> I am having trouble w/ knowing the portions and calorie counts of so

> many foods. Thanks!

There are big databases of foods that you can use to look up what you

eat. The USDA maintains such a database, freely available to be

downloaded. See http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl for

more on that.

There are various software programs that incorporate these databases

into their programming, to analyze the nutritional value of each recipe

you input, and even make suggestions about what you should add or take

away in order to optimize a given meal. Walford produces a Windows

program that does this. See http://www.walford.com/software.htm

There are also Linux programs available for free, that do much the same

thing. One of these is called Nut. See

http://www.gnu.org/directory/hobbies/health/nut.html

That page also lists Gnutrition:

http://www.gnu.org/directory/gnutrition.html

Both of those Linux programs use an older version of the database, but it

should be possible to update it with version 16 without much of a problem.

If you are still at the stage where you are struggling to keep track of

calories, I suggest you go carefully. Don't cut down calories in an extreme way

if you haven't already figured out how to optimize your nutrition. Nutritional

optimization is a much harder problem than caloric restriction, because there

are many more values to consider. If you only address the simpler problem

first, you may end up neglecting the harder; while both are crucial. You should

be aware that if you reduce your caloric intake in an extreme way without

providing your body with optimal nutrition, you can actually die. It is very

dangerous to practice CRON dieting incorrectly. Read and learn all you can,

and work at optimizing your nutrition *before* you start in on the caloric

restriction aspects of CRON dieting. If you haven't already read " Beyond

The 120 Year Diet " , that is a good place to start, but each of Walford's

books are very useful. If you want some sample recipes to experiment with,

" The Anti-Aging Plan " provides a bunch of them.

Best of luck,

Zack

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Zack is correct. First you might want to focus on just changing your diet

to healthy foods and eliminate the junk. You will automatically eliminate

many empty calories that you've been eating. See our file: " CR Make Easy "

for a good way to start off. We also provide many software programs in our

file: Nutrient Tracking Programs - many of which are free. To access the

files, Just go to our home page:

/ and click on " files " in

the left hand column.

Finally: a warm welcome to you! And let us know if we can help with

anything else.

on 12/12/2003 9:42 AM, Zack Brown at zbrown@... wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 01:27:39PM -0000, jessicadavida wrote:

>> I am just starting the CRON diet. How do I keep track of calories?

>> I am having trouble w/ knowing the portions and calorie counts of so

>> many foods. Thanks!

>

> There are big databases of foods that you can use to look up what you

> eat. The USDA maintains such a database, freely available to be

> downloaded. See http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl for

> more on that.

>

> There are various software programs that incorporate these databases

> into their programming, to analyze the nutritional value of each recipe

> you input, and even make suggestions about what you should add or take

> away in order to optimize a given meal. Walford produces a Windows

> program that does this. See http://www.walford.com/software.htm

>

> There are also Linux programs available for free, that do much the same

> thing. One of these is called Nut. See

> http://www.gnu.org/directory/hobbies/health/nut.html

>

> That page also lists Gnutrition:

> http://www.gnu.org/directory/gnutrition.html

>

> Both of those Linux programs use an older version of the database, but it

> should be possible to update it with version 16 without much of a problem.

>

> If you are still at the stage where you are struggling to keep track of

> calories, I suggest you go carefully. Don't cut down calories in an extreme

> way

> if you haven't already figured out how to optimize your nutrition. Nutritional

> optimization is a much harder problem than caloric restriction, because there

> are many more values to consider. If you only address the simpler problem

> first, you may end up neglecting the harder; while both are crucial. You

> should

> be aware that if you reduce your caloric intake in an extreme way without

> providing your body with optimal nutrition, you can actually die. It is very

> dangerous to practice CRON dieting incorrectly. Read and learn all you can,

> and work at optimizing your nutrition *before* you start in on the caloric

> restriction aspects of CRON dieting. If you haven't already read " Beyond

> The 120 Year Diet " , that is a good place to start, but each of Walford's

> books are very useful. If you want some sample recipes to experiment with,

> " The Anti-Aging Plan " provides a bunch of them.

>

> Best of luck,

> Zack

>

>>

[Guest guest]

I have wondered how to do Calorie counting myself.

Counting means a food scale, weighing everything, writing it down,

keeping a food diary, entering it into a nutrition software program

on your computer, and finally getting an answer.

And the amount of calories burned in physical activity always leaves

an uncertainty of several hundred calories, even with the best food

diary attempts.

So maybe, the best choice is to keep everything simple, be sure to

avoid the bad junk foods, pick low-calorie alternatives, and watch

your weight over the long haul -- and forget the calorie counting.

Just stay slender and happy. This is one point of view, and there

may be input from others too. Simplicity has virtue, as long as it

doesn't hurt you.

-- Warren

====================

On 12 Dec 2003, jessicadavida [mailto:jessicadavida@...] wrote:

>

> I am just starting the CRON diet. How do I keep track of calories?

> I am having trouble w/ knowing the portions and calorie counts of so

> many foods. Thanks!

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Zack Brown wrote:

> There are also Linux programs available for free, that do much the same

> thing. One of these is called Nut. See

> http://www.gnu.org/directory/hobbies/health/nut.html

Thanks for reference to this program.

Downloaded it.

Link on web page is wrong, btw.

ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/apps/misc/nut-9.3.tar.gz

not

ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/apps/misc/nut-9.2.tar.gz

> That page also lists Gnutrition:

> http://www.gnu.org/directory/gnutrition.html

>

> Both of those Linux programs use an older version of the database, but it

> should be possible to update it with version 16 without much of a problem.

Version 9.3 of nut appears to use version 16 of the database.