Calorie Counting Websites

A few Points on Tracking Calories:

• Calorie tracking online ISN'T 100% necessary - so you don't have to do it... What matters is that you are eating appropriately for your needs, what ever way you do this (eg: via portion control, via spreadsheet, via diabetic exchange lists)
• Calorie tracking is only as accurate as you make it! So if you neglect to track the foods, or leave out snacks, or only half fill in the days then it isn't going to work.
• It doesn't *really* matter how accurate the tracker is - what matters is that it is accurate to what you DO and that it gives you something to monitor and change if required.... (that is - similar to bodyfat tracking - even if the number is not *right*, if you are logging over time and it is going in the right direction, then this is all that matters)
• You don't have to track every day.... especially if you eat the same thing most days. So just doing one or two logs/ week to see where you are is perfectly fine.
• When you track - look at the TOTAL CALORIES and then the GRAMS of PROTEIN, FATS and CARBS. It is NOT about the 'macro %' you hit... Your body doesn't CARE what % comes from different macronutrient groups - what it cares about is that you are getting enough to support your lean mass/ bodyweight... and this comes down to grams per unit weight (either total weight or lean mass depending on what method you are using, your total bodyfat% and a few other variables)
• DO NOT change things too quickly... if you decide to make a change to your calorie intake - you might want to give yourself 3-4 weeks before you expect to see significant change.... If you keep changing things 'looking for something that works', you'll probably never see results...

A GUIDE TO FOOD LABELS:
http://www.acaloriecounter.com/food-labels.php


A Few of the Calorie counting Sites:

• http://nutritiondata.self.com/
  Most accurate/ detailed, Lots of natural foods
  
• http://www.calorieking.com/
  Lots of information on commercial products
  
• http://www.calorieking.com.au/ (aussie version of above)
  As above, only for the land downunder
  
• http://www.nutridiary.com/
  Good basic and accurate tool that allows you to create favourite meals for ease of logging. Tracks exercise and water intake too
  
• https://dailyburn.com/
  Easy to use, Accurate, Good range of foods, Very funky additional applications such as bar-code scanning
  
• http://caloriecount.about.com/
  This has a cool recipe tool where you simply type in a list of foods and how many servings you want and it calculates it out. < VERY handy!
  
• http://www.fitday.com/
  Inaccurate in regards to calories from carbs/ fibre and can give false information on servings sizes... Ok if you log all your own foods
  
• http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/
  
• http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/calories-in.asp
  
• http://www.sparkpeople.com/
  
• https://www.livestrong.com/login/
  
• http://www.myfitnesspal.com/
  
• http://calorielab.com/index.html

NOTE: Not written by me, its originally posted by Emma-Leigh over at http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=119482931

I just thought i share this as it has really helped me alot and im sure that it will help atleast some of you out there!

-varg