Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I am going to start cutting my calories so I can lose weight. This comes at time when I am really excited about cooking new recipes that have no calorie count listed. I'd love to find one that not only figures my calories but also my nutrients. It would be even more awesome to be informed if I am short on nutrients but I could live w/o that feature. Please post a link if you know of a website you like.

myfitnesspal.com

I use nutritiondata.com for working that stuff out.

This is my favorite: http://cronometer.com/

I second My Fitness Pal. It has an app, it is easy to use, and has a large database.

I also use My Fitness Pal, and I'm really happy with it. A lot of people have figured out the calories for vegan recipes- you can just type in the title of a few vegan cookbooks and there's often something there for you. And if you figure out the calories and add the recipe to the database, then it helps the rest of us too! I mainly use the app and I've found it to be great.

I... fourth? myfitnesspal. If anyone wants to add me on it, I'm gogogulliver, by the way.

Myfitnesspal is great. You can scan any food with a barcode and the information will be automatically entered.

I've tried like 5 different ones and prefer caloriecount.about.com. It seems the easiest for building recipes and gives you a percentage breakdown for your nutrients.

I've been using cronometer lately and I like it better than a few others I had tried years ago. It tracks more nutrients than some of the older ones which was my whole motivation for using it - making sure my protein and micronutrients were up to snuff, which some of them weren't (potassium, patothenic acid, and selenium seem to be regularly under 100% for me so now I'm working on that).

Eudemonia - try brazil nuts for selenium, you only need one or two to meet the requirements. The other thing I like about cronometer is that it lets you set very specific personalized targets. It is really on a whole different level than the other calorie counters.

If you're really interested in tracking your nutrients, then NutriMirror is the way to go. I've used three or four different online trackers, and it's my favorite. It's super easy to track nutrients, and it even has an 'at a glance' sort of thing that shows red if you're short on something that day, and green if you've had enough. It also helps you make sure you're getting a good balance of your calories from carbs, protein and fat, rather than just tracking calories. It is seriously the most thorough tracker I've ever found, and really user friendly.

That sounds a lot like cronometer - it also does the green/yellow/red thing and it tracks EVERYTHING (including amino acids and omegas - might be a little overboard for simple weight loss purposes).

Myfitnesspal also. I like that it's social so you interact with friends on there and can send posts to fb

I like Myfitnesspal too. I like that it has an app and that you can scan barcodes. I'm easy to please.

I agree MyFitnessPal it's the simplest for weightloss, I use it myself.

You guys inspired me to log back in to myfitnesspal. The people on the forums are pretty snarky though...

Really? Must just be a bad day; I've found them overwhelmingly glowing at all times.

The ones in the groups are overwhelmingly supportive. I find the general open forums full of snarky discussion. I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing, though. That's why I love the PPK. ;)

I'm also into myfitnesspal though I don't use the social aspects at all. It's not in depth on nutrients but it's fine for plain old calorie counting and fat/carb/protein balancing. I'm also really into the barcode scanner as it is tedious to type in "vegetable broth powder" and search for the right brand etc for every ingredient.

I'm loving my fitness pal. Easiest one I've ever used.

I tried myfitnesspal but I think I'd like to compare to cronometer as I really want to see more specifics about nutrients for awhile since I am not sure I am getting enough of everything. I was wonder if anyone know how to set up RDA custom. I started to refer to Vegan For Life (book) for numbers until I realized cronometer is being set for a ratio. I know for my weight loss I based on the book I probably should get 55 grams of protein, and 30 grams of fat (based on book recomendations) I don't know how much in carbs but I do try not to go too overboard with them as I tend to be hypoglycemic. If anyone knows how the ratio should be set to help with weight loss yet still get proper nutrients let me know.

I'm hypoglycemic as well and what helps me is types of carbs (complex) and eating snacks. I haven't had an episode since going vegan but white bread used to set me off.

I don't know anything about cronometer but there are 4 calories per gram of protein and 9 calories per gram of fat, depending on your caloric goals, you'd need to figure out your percentage. It looks like you want 220 calories of protein and 270 calories of fat per day. Together, that is just under 500. If you ate about 1500 calories, your ratio would be something like 60% carbs, 22% fat, 18% protein. That is just an estimate as I'm too lazy to us a calculator :)

the reason you only see percentages and not specific numbers is because the percentages are basically the same for everyone, but the specific amounts are different based on height, weight, physical activity level and weight loss goals.

The daily needs calculator on nutritiondata.com tells you percentages and gram amounts of nutrients. http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned

Cronometer has a custom setting where you can change the percentages. Just play with them until you get them to give you at least 55 g. of protein and 30 g. of fat.

I would disagree with the idea that the widely given percentages are appropriate for everyone. They're appropriate for people who are eating enough calories to maintain their weight, but might not be right for people who are dieting or trying to gain. Dieting women in the western world do sometimes suffer from protein deficiencies because eating ~12% of your calories from protein as non-starving humans naturally tend to do in almost every culture across the globe leads to very low protein consumption if you're only eating 1200 calories or whatever. Sometimes you have to pay a little more attention to these things and bump up the percentages accordingly. Eating a very low fat diet can also be problematic, as it inhibits absorption of vitamins and it's also just kind of unsatisfying.

My own experience with dieting is that I find it easier to manage if I pay a lot of attention to getting enough protein (I personally aim for 60-70g) and fat and allow myself to eat fewer carbs. It's easier for me to manage my hunger that way and I'm much less likely to have hypoglycemic issues between meals.