counting calories

[boyshopping]

Hi everyone - i'm new on this forum but have been reading a lot. The site is great! Question for the LE diet - swaying pink. How do you exactly count calories? I know people use myfitnesspal app but how do you count salads from the salad bar, or a veggie sandwich you buy or a bowl of rice? Do you estimate? If you go on a vegetarian diet and eat 2 meals a day - are you basically within the 1500-1800 calories assuming you are eating in moderation? Also how important is Olive leaf extract for DH? thanks!

[atomic sagebrush]

Low carb vegetables are FREE and unlimited. You can have literally as much as you want of them, no need to count them for anything. So going to a salad bar, you don't even really NEED to count that because you're having mostly low carb veg and even if you toss on something like a bit of carrot or beetroot, it just doesn't amount to anything. Salad dressings are usualy about 100 cals a tablespoon so just use that as a rule of thumb.

Having a veggie sandwich or rice bowl, a lot of places have nutritional info for the asking (often online), so if it's something you eat regularly you would know. Another strategy, when you're eating out, is to just have half of what you order and save the rest for another meal. You don't always have to count EVERYTHING all the time though, you're just aiming for the 1500-1800 cals most of the time. So if you're hitting the 1500-1800 most days of the week and on Wednesday you go out to lunch and have a pepper and goat cheese sandwich and aren't sure if you went over or not - that's ok. It's the big picture that matter and not one meal in isolation.

The problem with just going vegetarian and eating 2x a day is that I find most people have the opposite problem - they OVERestimate how much they are eating. So they end up eating 1000 cals a day which isn't enough, and they lose gobs of weight and stop ovulation. The biggest reason why we track is not for the sway, but for safety to ensure we don't go overboard cutting back too far and are geting enough protein and fat in additon to calories.

Just to clarify both 2-3 meals are equally fine and allowed, do what works better for you (and this can vary by the day.) Just push "breakfast" back to 11-12 and then do 2 OR 3 meals depending on what your metabolism prefers. I always had 3 when I got my DD.

OLE for DH has gotten good results but so far we have mainly used it in men who have sperm count or health problems, or who are over 40 and they may be more "set" for pink anyway. I do not yet trust the results with OLE. So if he isn't willing to take it, it is fine, it may not even work anyway. I got my daughter with my husband doing nothing to help. :)

[boyshopping]

Hi Atomic,
Thanks so much for reply. Agreed - I felt really hungry just eating a small salad for lunch and can see how I could OVERestimate how much I'm eating. Any tips on how to reach 1500 on a vegetarian diet? Also if I am running at night after the kids go to bed - can I get veggies after a 1 hour work out if I'm hungry? thanks!

[atomic sagebrush]

Focus on things that have some carbs, fat, and protein in them. Vegetarian does not mean "only vegetables" and again, low carb vegetables are free and limitless, have them whenever you want them. Things like sandwiches, bagels, burritos, rice bowls with tofu or nuts, pasta - those things will HAVE a fair amount of cals in them compared to a salad. It will be easy to hit 1500 especially if you bump it up to 3 meals - 500 cals is really not that much. YOu can also fill in the gaps with drinks or goodies, like a soda with full sugar has 150 cals right there.

If you have only had 2 meals you can ALWAYS eat a 3rd after running and it doens't need to be just veggies, either. If you've had 3 meals and are dying for something after your workout, eating just veggies is a heck of a lot better than a lot of things you could be eating, that's for sure. It's one of those things that isn't strictly allowed but at the same time it's probably perfectly fine to do that.

[Dreamingofpinkafter2blue]

I'm still in the swaying process but I've been following atomic's advice About the veggies and eating a lot of them especially cabbage like veggies (broc, cauli, coleslaw, Brussels etc.). We do a farm share and get tons of veggies and it's cheap for me to eat them and my family won't really eat them. My fave LE lunch is corn tortilla (I cook in a tad of butter and put cheese between them). And dip in a teeny bit SOur cream. Then I eat that with like 2-3 veggie sides. I find that lunch satisfying and easy to make. It's pretty low protein. Sometimes if I have a lot of protein left over for the day, I'll even have a few bites of meat for dinner (not every night).