How to track calories: a beginner's guide

Tracking calories is one of the most reliable ways to understand what you eat. The trick is making it accurate enough to be useful and quick enough to stick with.

1. Set a starting target

Work out roughly how many calories you need — see our guide to how many calories you should eat — then pick a target that matches your goal.

2. Log everything for a week

Don't change your diet at first. Just log what you normally eat and drink, including snacks, drinks, cooking oil and sauces.

3. Weigh what you can

Portion sizes are easy to misjudge. A cheap kitchen scale for foods like rice, pasta, cereal and nut butter makes your logs far more accurate.

4. Log as you go

Logging straight after eating is more accurate than trying to remember at the end of the day.

5. Look at trends, not single days

One high day doesn't undo your progress. Weekly averages tell you far more than any one day.

Make it faster with Loggah

Loggah lets you snap a photo of your meal to log calories and macros in seconds, and shows your daily totals on your phone and a live desktop dashboard.

This guide is general information, not medical advice.

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