Calories in, Calories out
| 3 min read
I went up 2 kgs in July. For real. There was the Priorat trip, the world cup fueled by beer, a couple bags of lörsdagsgodies (gummies)…
I finally decided to do something about it: CICO. Calories In, Calories Out. I have accepted I am NOT someone who can eat intuitively, and that I need to weight my food and count my calories, at least until I get to my weight goal, but possibly until the end of times.
To help me on this journey, I have my trusted kitchen scale and a calorie-counting app I just discovered called Cronometer! It is brilliant, it is Canadian, it is miles ahead of MyFitnessPal and I have already lost 4kgs after only one month using it! The free version does everything I need, but I specifically signed up for premium for the AI Photo Logging tool which I'll use on my upcoming trip to Brazil. So far, I'm impressed.
One week into my weight loss journey, I decided to stop being lazy and to just start going to the damned gym – which is, quite literally, inside my own home! We have a Sole F85 treadmill and a functional cable trainer Inspire FT2. My husband goes every day, while I make excuses and browse reddit!
I even bought a set of cheap resistance bands to take with me to Brazil. I'll be there for one month and don't want to come up with excuses and undo all my progress. I'm going to make my life as easy as possible, so I don't bail out when it comes to workouts and logging calories.
The content of this post was originally published in August's monthly recap. I later moved it into its own post, rewrote it a bit and backdated.
Update 2026-10-05:
I'm currently in Brazil and Cronometer's AI Photo Logging tool works really well. It matches a photo to items on their database, and from there we can swap/add/remove ingredients and adjust portions. You can also snap a photo of the menu description or of a recipe in a book. There's also a Voice Logging, which works the same way. Both are very useful and a time-saver when eating at relatives or restaurants. I also love the Barcode scanner, although not every product I scanned was on the database. The ones I was planning to eat more times, I added myself to the Custom Food database. For food I was only going to eat once, I used the Quick Add feature to add the calories.
The database does not recognise many of the traditional ingredients of Brazil's Northeast, but I've been able to work around it. It doesn't know queijo coalho, but it knows halloumi. It doesn't know carne de sol, cuscuz, bolo de rolo, pitanga, acerola, cajá... I'm just doing my best and finding similar foods and estimating calories. It does know cassava and yuca! For stuff with barcodes, I'm trying to add some products to the database, but not obsessing too much over it.
Sadly, a visit to family and friends in Brazil means way too much food and beer. I just haven't been able to resist, and I went up 1kg in two weeks already! 🍹🍻🌴
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