%carb/prot/fat (long reply)
They figure it as a percent of calories, not weight or volume. Yes, they do math at every meal (that right there will take the pounds off!)
We eat the same things often enough so after a few days it's easy to look back for all the stats on, say, a half cup of cottage cheese or 5 ounces of beef.
"How do I know what I can/cannot eat without measuring, weighing, or preparing all my foods?
Thank you all for any input."
Well, without measuring, there really is not much of a point.
Of course you have to measure your food but how else would you realize how big portions are? Very soon you will be able to eyeball it. For example, 3 ounces of meat is about the size of a regular deck of playing cards.
Successful nutritional fitness requires knowledge of how much one serving is, and how much *you* require. Many of us only kept food diaries less than 4 weeks. After that, the knowledge becomes part of you. If you find yourself straying you can always go back to it for a few days.
I found helpful a daily goal, calculated using my age, height, weight, my reasonable goal of how much fat I wanted to lose in how long, and how much activity I did each day. My trainer then divided the daily total by grams of each (pro, fat, carb) into 6 parts. I was to shoot for the one-sixth goal at each little meal. It was actually much more fun than I expected. And the results were fantastic!
I'm still working on it. You will be pleasantly surprised to find out just how much regular Cathe workouts jack up your requirement. It will take lots of experimenting to find what works for you.
If you want, you can download and print out a simple daily food diary page to fill out, in Excel, here:
http://www.geocities.com/ciaobella98765/FoodDiary.xls
Fitday.com has all the grams/calories info, and it is also available in little books you can take with you through the day.
And finally, to face hidden emotional reasons we get the urge to eat when we're not hungry, I highly recommend the book Life is Hard, Food is Easy by Linda Spangle, RN MA.
Enjoy your endeavor!
