Why two apps give the same roti different calories
Different databases, source types, raw versus cooked states and user-submitted entries. Why calorie apps disagree, and which number you should actually use.
5 min read
Calorie tracking
How to count calories in a way you can keep up past the second week: what to log, what to skip, and where the numbers come from.
Most people who quit calorie tracking did not lack discipline. They were asked to do arithmetic at every meal, choose between eleven database entries for the same food, and convert a bowl of dal into grams. These articles cover the parts that actually decide whether tracking sticks: how accurate is accurate enough, what to do about restaurant meals, and how to log without owning a kitchen scale.
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How to track calories without giving up in week twoA method for counting calories that survives home cooking, restaurants and a normal week, using the accuracy you need rather than what apps pretend to offer.
17 articles
Tracking calories while travelling, without guesswork
Hotel breakfasts, airport food, unfamiliar kitchens and no scale. A travel system built on defaults and anchors rather than research at every meal.
6 min read
Tracking calories when one pot feeds four people
Shared food breaks per-plate logging. Log the pot instead: count ingredients once, divide by real servings, reuse the number every time you cook it.
6 min read
How to track calories without a food scale
A calibration method that turns your own bowls, spoons and rotis into reliable units, so you can log a meal in seconds without weighing anything at the table.
6 min read
How to track alcohol without ruining the week
What a drink actually costs, why alcohol calories behave differently from food, and a set of defaults that keep a night out from turning into an untracked gap.
6 min read
How to read a nutrition label in ten seconds
Which column to look at, what the serving size is hiding, how much tolerance the numbers carry, and the four claims on the front of the pack that mean nothing.
6 min read
How to log a restaurant meal you didn't cook
Restaurant food is where most food logs break. A set of defaults and a decision rule that take four seconds and beat both perfectionism and skipping the entry.
6 min read
How to log leftovers and second helpings honestly
Second helpings, food cleared off other plates and the pot finished at midnight are the entries most often missed. An accounting method that catches them.
5 min read
How long should you track calories before stopping?
Tracking is a teaching tool with a natural end. What you are meant to learn from it, how to tell when you have, and what replaces it once the log comes off.
6 min read
How accurate are calorie counts, really?
Labels carry a legal tolerance, databases disagree and absorption varies. How wrong calorie counts really are, and why it changes little about tracking.
7 min read
Hand portion sizes: the method that needs no tools
Palm, fist, cupped hand and thumb, with the approximate grams and calories behind each, and an honest account of where hand portions work and where they fail.
6 min read
Does cooking change the calories in your food?
Cooking does not destroy calories, but it changes weight, digestibility and how much energy you absorb. What shifts, by how much, and what it means for logging.
5 min read
Do you have to track calories every single day?
What happens to accuracy when you log five days instead of seven, when partial tracking works, and the one pattern of skipping that reliably ruins a food log.
6 min read
Nine calorie tracking mistakes that quietly add up
The errors that make a careful food log disagree with the scale: cooking oil, serving sizes, weekend gaps and raw-versus-cooked entries, with the fix for each.
6 min read
Calorie tracking for beginners: your first seven days
A day-by-day start that does not require perfection: what to log on day one, what to add each day after, and what to ignore entirely for the first week.
6 min read
When calorie tracking stops helping you
The signs a food log has stopped being a tool and started being a source of anxiety, what to do about it, and what to use instead without losing progress.
5 min read
How to track calories without giving up in week two
A method for counting calories that survives home cooking, restaurants and a normal week, using the accuracy you need rather than what apps pretend to offer.
9 min read
Terms used in this topic
- Calorie
A calorie on a food label is really a kilocalorie: the energy needed to raise one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius, and the unit every nutrition figure on this site is given in.
- Food diary
A food diary is a record of everything eaten over a period, kept on paper or in an app; its value comes from consistency and honesty rather than from the precision of any single entry.
- Household serving
A household serving is a portion expressed in the units people really use — a roti, a katori, a cup, a tablespoon — rather than in grams, so a meal can be logged without weighing anything.
- Nutrition label
A nutrition label is the panel on packaged food declaring energy and nutrient content per serving and per 100 g; regulations permit a tolerance between the declared and actual values, typically around 20 per cent.
- Serving size
A serving size is the quantity of food a nutrition figure refers to; it is set by the manufacturer or database rather than by how much you eat, which makes it the most common source of logging error.