Counting Calories Allows Me to Eat More Food Without Gaining Weight

I haven't been able to lose weight lately because I have been so hungry. However, I haven't been gaining any weight either. I am not a dietician and cannot guarantee how counting calories will work for other people but it appears to be working for me.

I started counting calories as a way to attempt to lose weight. For awhile I did. It allowed me to go down two sizes. I used rough approximates of calories based on three main sources: books, web sites, and food labels. While counting calories, I discovered there are approximately 680 calories in a 1/2 pound of hamburger while there are approximately 320 calories in a 1/2 pound of turkey burger. This means that when the hunger pains become too much for me, I can cook and eat twice as much turkey burger as hamburger without gaining weight.

Another example of this is milk. I have noticed that the light chocolate soy milk that I have been drinking has 120 calories for 8 ounces while the light vanilla soy milk has only 80. This allows me to have three glasses of milk when before I could only have two.

While I'm not that fond of lettuce, I enjoy spinach salad as long as it is not too dry.I have learned that all I need is lemon on spinach instead of salad dressing. Even oil and vinegar without sugar can have over 50 calories per tablespoon while a whole lemon only has around 25. I know that if I use the oil and vinegar, I'm using at least 2 or 3 tablespoons. I only need to use about a 1/2 a lemon. I don't gain any weight when eating my spinach but I still feel full.

I've also noticed that light popcorn has less calories than regular popcorn even though it takes me the same amount of time to eat it. Perhaps that it due to it having less fat.

Along with counting calories I also started making sure I have all four basic food groups each day. I have always been a big meat eater but now I make sure that between each turkey burger, I have a fruit or a vegetable. This helps cut down on my meat eating. I also try to have bread with the meat so I eat less calories that way as well. Since I stopped eating sugar, it appears that it is meat that would cause me to gain weight the most.