Frequently asked questions

What is CalorieBase?

The Free-to-use CalorieBase is intended to help those who want to lose weight. Its main objective is quick and easy handling. Calorie and nutrition records are supported by comprehensive food, drink, recipe and sports database, which users can expand by themselves. Meals and exercises can be saved so that calories can be traced. With the CalorieBase "Set your Goal" calculator, users can set their weight loss plans themselves. Day-to-day the site helps you to reach your goal with graphs, charts, and textual evaluations.

How can CalorieBase help with successful weight loss?

One of the largest calorie and nutrition database.
Creation of own recipes, calculation of exact nutrient content
Set custom weight loss goal
Tracking meals, exercises, creating stats based on them
Track your daily calorie limit and nutrients
Saving your daily weight, measurements, showing on flexible graphs
Textual evaluation, articles, forum, facebook support

How do the calculations work?

The site's operation is based on the calculation that 1 kg body fat corresponds to approximately 7700 kcal. This means that if you eat less by 1100 calories a day, you can lose 1 kg a week. Of course, this depends on many factors, however, this average figure approximates reality.

When planning your weight loss, we take into account your personal characteristics (age, gender, height, current body weight, lifestyle, etc.). Based on these, you can determine how much calories you burn each day.

After that, we can calculate how much you need to reach 10 kg of weight loss and how much calories you can eat per day (this is called Daily Limit). From there, you have nothing to do to manage your meals and stay within your daily limit.

Calorie? Kcal? Kilocalories?

A calorie is the amount of energy that increases the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 ° C.
1000 calories = 1 kcal (kilocalories)
So calories are not the same as kcal, though they are mistakenly identified in the common language.
However to make things easier we also call calorie a kcal.

What should I do if I can not find a food in the database?
It is certain that this will happen in the beginning, this is common. Our tips for such cases:

Try changing your search, so just enter the most important keyword (for example, look for "peach brandy" instead of "kosher peach brandy").
We recommend using google using a quotation mark plus "kcal" (eg "kosher peach brandy" kcal)
The most reliable source is the free database compiled by the US government.
Ask your question in the forum "How many calories?" topic.
Look for a similar thing (eg "brandy").
Once you find something, you can save it as you Own Food and so over time there will be little food you can not find.

How do I know the weight of my food?

Most of the products are marked with accurate data. However, we often get food without weight information.

On our site we tried to give the most common dishes in specific units of measure (piece, slice, plate, etc ...).
You can use these if you can not measure the weight of the food. However, it can be said from experience that their long-term use is inappropriate. Sooner or later, the dieter starts to cheat, the slice of bread becomes thicker, the piece of cake is getting bigger.
For long-term results, it is recommended to purchase a digital kitchen scale that can accurately measure grams.
After this there is no way to cheat, the bread of a slice will be exactly as much as it really is.
This may seem complicated first, but at the same time it gives the man the pleasant feeling that he records everything carefully and does not allow unwanted plus calories.
That's why we recommend that if you seriously think about dieting, spend 10-20 USD for a good digital kitchen scale.

How many pounds can I lose with calorie counting? How many pounds per week? And what Daily Limit shall I set?
For your part, we recommend that the adjusted weight loss be no more than 0.5 kg per week, but maximum 1 kg per week (generally 0.5-1% of your body weight). Also, be sure to eat at least 1000 to 1200 calories a day, so that your body does not turn into "starving" mode, which will also ruin your weight loss and mood (see News in the Dangers of Fasting). The extra pounds did not crawl in two weeks, so you have to be patient for lasting weight loss.
We know it is depressing to hear when we see a lot of super new slimming method ads promising 2-3 kg per week, but it's still better than disillusioning about these "wondrous" things again and again.
It is important to know that diets that are fast-paced have serious disadvantages:

You will feel worse physically and mentally, more tired and sick.
After initial success, weight loss will mostly slow down or stop, then you can easily lose motivation and begin to "cheat", all your efforts wasted.
When you lose a lot weight, you will actually lose water and muscle instead of body fat
The yo-yo effect is really effective at this time

The purpose of this website is to help you with sustained weight loss so you always know where you are. Its daily use motivates and maintains a more healthy diet while keeping track of how you are getting closer and closer to your goal.

The dangers of fasting and too low calorie diets can be found here.

How can I edit my Own Foods and Recipes afterwards?

Find the food you want to edit from the search engine and click on the small blue "i" in the row and click Open Food in the popup. You can find the Edit button there.

Nutrients - What nutrients are there and what is their function?

Nutrients are part of the diet that "nutrify" the body and contribute to its growth and development. Nutrients can be: protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals. Although the fibers do not directly contribute to development and growth, they are indispensable for proper digestion, and are commonly classified as nutrients. The fibers help digestion and increase the saturation sensation. Source of fibers: cereals, breads, pastries, vegetables, legumes and fruits.

Proteins consist of amino acids and are essential for growth and tissue regeneration. Sources of proteins: meat, meat products, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes and cereals.

Carbohydrates provide our brain and body with the "fuel" needed for our day-to-day tasks. They consist of starches and sugars. Starches can be found in bread, potatoes, cereal products, rice and pasta. Sugar is the source of fruit, vegetables and generally sugary products.

Fats are sources of energy and essential fatty acids. However, they are carriers of fat-soluble vitamins and are essential for cell function. Fats emphasize the flavor of the food (fat is unfortunately delicious ... not accidentally is more flavorful an oil-fried potato than an oven baked). Excessive consumption of fats is not recommended. Ingredients: fatty acids (saturated, unleaded, unpolished), which are named after their chemical structure. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are unsaturated.

Vitamins and minerals (any small amounts) are indispensable for the proper functioning of the body. Foods can be sources of various vitamins and minerals. Some of them are in alphabetical order (A, C, D, E - vitamins), others named, eg. B1 thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) candidates. Minerals are indicated by their chemical name (eg calcium, iron, magnesium).

Nutrient ratios - why are they important?

A balanced diet can not be achieved by consuming a single food - it can be balanced on a daily, weekly basis, with the help of a varied diet. This means that any food can be part of a healthy diet, so we can feel joy in the food.

Nutritionists suggest that a varied diet should be composed as follows:

10-15% of energy from protein
50-55% of the energy from carbohydrate (including sugars)
30-35% of the energy from fat (with saturated fatty acids)

In general, proteins are required to have a minimum level (so try to fill your protein bar graph), carbohydrate and fat (try to stay under the limit). Our site helps you to keep track of those .

For example, a woman with a normal physical activity needs at least 50 to 75 g of protein, a maximum of 250 to 275 g of carbohydrate and a maximum of 65-75 g of fat, with a daily energy requirement of 2000 kcal per day.

Energy content of nutrients:

· 1 g protein = 4 kcal

· 1 g carbohydrate = 4 kcal

· 1 g fat = 9 kcal

The bar graphs on the main page show you how much grams of protein, carbohydrate, and fat you need to consume in order to reach the optimum ratio for a given calorie limit.

When you open Settings, you can set how much of your Daily Calories you want to get with different nutrients. For sportsmen and bodybuilders it is recommended to increase the proportion of proteins. We've also implemented this into an optional setting, but we would encourage everyone to set optimal proportions for their individual medical proposal. Pre-recorded ratios on the website only serve to raise awareness about the right nutrition.

Measurements

If you do some sporting activity beside your diet (which is highly recommended), you will experience that you do not lose weight at a pace as you wish. This is because the muscle gained is harder than fat. The goal is, after all, a healthier and aesthetic look for everyone, so we recommend reassuring to measure your contours. You can track them in the yellow Measurements box. Measurements can be made on any regular basis, and you do not have to always measure all the data. To see the results by opening the Graph, you can check which change you want to see. If the weight data is disturbed, turn them off, but you have a table to compare it with the other changes (centimeter and kg data can be shown in the same time).

You can record any other values (blood pressure, glucose, etc.). If you miss any metrics from the list, write to us and let us know.

You can get a long-term overview of stored Measurements in a printable format when you export your measurements from the Tools / Diet Log menu to Excel. It is important that only the Measurements included in the Measurements box are included in the Excel file.

How to Measure Circle Size:

Breast: Stand in a natural straight line with your hands lowered to your body. At the widest part of the back and breast, measure the chest pain so that your thumbs fit under the ribbon. Measure breastbone in bra.
Waist size: Stand in natural condition. When measuring the waist you should not pull the belly! Before measuring, place a marker on your waist and measure the waistband around it. Leave a finger distance between the waistband and your waist.Do not tighten the tape!
Hip: Stand in natural condition. At the widest point, measure the hip. Note the distance between the weave and the waist mark.

How to use recipes

To add recipes, select the ingredients and their quantity and add it to the list one by one. For the most accurate calculation, you need to be aware of the following:

In the ingredients of our recipes we only show the quantities we actually eat.

There are two basic things to do: cook in water or fry in a grease.

If you cook in water (eg vegetables), then water does not have to be included in the ingredients because we do not drink it.

But if we cook soup, we must pick the exact amount of water to be able to calculate the nutrient content of 100 ml soup.

If you fry in fat or oil (eg fried potatoes, fried meat), you only have to add as much fat to the ingredients as the food is absorbed. Here an average value is calculated: 1 kg of meat or vegetables takes about 50 grams of fat (about 4 tablespoons of oil). The breaded things absorb about two times more, ie 100 grams per kilo.

Obviously, if we make a goulash soup and fry the onion in the bacon at the beginning then we must add the whole amount of fat as it is part of the food we eat.

Read more about this in the basic recipe guide here, and the advanced recipe guide here.

More people use the software from the same computer. Can you handle multiple users?

Yes. Learn more about the Tools / Connected Users menu.

I would like my food / recipe to be visible to others. Is that possible?

Yes, but it depends on the circumstances:

In case of a single occasion: it is worth knowing that the system is functioning without any recipe or food being "secret". So you can send your own foods to others, simply copy the URL link to the food or recipe. If you already have a link to that food, you can open it and eat it. This is an example I created. You cant find it in search bar, still you can eat it because I've just copied its link: https://kaloriabazis.hu/recept/almas_semmi/10026_0_1
If you often eat same meals/recipes (one household), it is recommended to create a Connected User relationship (see Tools / Connected Users).
If you add a food / recipe that is useful for other users too, you can recommend it to a common database.IMPORTANT: Recommendations for the common database has strict rules, and non-compliance will result in banning. For example, do not use it to send something to your loved ones (eg "Dads favorite curdy cake").

During cooking the weight of certain foods will change. How can this be properly recorded when creating a recipe?

Most foods doesn't affected by the evaporation of the water content of foods. For example, a smoothie does not lose weight by mixing the ingredients. Take a juicy meat, which we boil with water then fry. fat. If you also add the water amount to the recipe, the calorie content per 100 g wont be right (half of the water evaporates).
As a solution to the problem, I recommend that you measure the weight of the whole food before and after preparation (although before it does not make much sense because it is as much as the weight of the ingredients has been added).
So if you have 2 kg of pre-frying something (zero balance can save lives), and after the baking is 1.5 kg, then it means that the calories remained the same but the weight decreased by half a kilo.

In this case you can put "Evaporation" as an ingredient and a minus sign (-500 grams). Then the value will be correct.

Here you can see an example of an oatmeal fried beetle .

How many calories do I need per day?

The daily calorie need is very different for each individual. Use our calculator (Tools menu / Set your goal) to calculate how many calories YOU need to lose/gain a specific weight. In addition, we recommend taking into account the guideline values defined by the European Food Industry Confederation : the energy requirement for children is 1500-2000 kcal, 2200-2700 kcal for men, and 1800-2200 kcal for women per day.

How does the page count calorie burning?
Calorie burning takes place on two main levels:
1. Daily Routine Kcal burning
Daily Routine Kcal is the calorie burning that you do not have any effect on, regardless of what happens to you. This is determined by two things: your physical characteristics and your daily life.

Based on your physical characteristics (gender, age, height, weight) you can calculate your daily kcal burning only by your life functions. You burn this amount of calories even if you are lying all day long. This makes up about 67% of your daily calorie burning.
After you have entered your average physical activity level, you can calculate how many calories you burn through your lifestyle conditions (work, school, home, etc.). This makes up about 33% of your daily calorie burning.

2. Calorie burning with exercise and sports
This is the point where you can affect calorie burning. This includes all the exercise and sports that you carry out beyond your regular daily life. These are always calculated separatedly in the green box on our website, where you can add your exercise one by one, and calculate the calorie burning associated with it. It's worth knowing how much calories you burn with a sport, depending on your current weight (with the same amount of running a heavier man burns more calories).

I want to gain weight. Can the site help with that too?

Yes, although the weight gain function is not yet fully developed. If there is a need, we will do it.
If you want to gain weight, set your planned weekly weight loss by using a negative sign in Goal.
Your Daily Limit will work, but text reviews are not yet programmed
For example, "Today you can eat 1000 kcal," you mean "You should eat at least 1000 kcal today", so the goal is to exhaust your Daily Limit rather than stay below it.

I want to set a new goal. What happens to my existing data?

When you already have a goal and you set a new one, the old plan will be overwritten. Your graph will be seen from the first day of the new goal (but you can see it back if you set an earlier date). You can also look back on your foods that you have eaten in the past, and your favorites and the Own Meals will stay where they were.

My Daily Limit has been changed! Why?

The Daily Limit is recalculated at each weight change. The new Daily Limit is defined by two things:

On one hand the change of your weight. A heavier person burns more calories during the day (bigger machines needs more fuel), and can eat more calories for the same amount of weight loss. Likewise, as you become thinner, your Daily Limit will be slightly reduced.
Another determining factor is if your actual weight loss differs greatly from your plan. You should know that the target date set in your weight loss schedule is fixed by the program, so if you have a deviation from the plan, your daily frame will be adjusted to reach your goal in time (neither before nor later). For example, if you have a one-half year plan, but you've been lost half of your weight over a month, the program will increase your caloric capacity to slow down. This can cause extreme high or extreme low calorie. In such cases, you may want to set a new weight loss plan (see next question).

What should I do if I lose weight faster than planned?

In this case you can decide that:

you keep yourself up to the target date you want: you'll need to raise your calories if you do not want to lose weight too fast. This is also justified because too fast weight loss leads to a more prudent outcome: after a while you get stuck and you do not understand why weight loss stops (your body switches to starving mode ... though this is mostly the first few weeks). A slower diet with a little higher calorie limit can results in a constant, sustainable level of weight loss.
Of course, you may decide that you do not agree with the proposal of the website. In this case, you can set a new goal (do not be afraid, you will not lose your old data, just keep in mind that in the Graph menu, change the "from" value to the original start date, to see your all-way progress, or you can set fixed calorie limit (by clicking on the "setting" button in the yellow Daily Limit box). These are also perfectly good solutions, as most users can understand which values fits them better (not too high or not too low) after tracking his diet for some months.

Why is there a Water Consumption counter?

This function is only designed to remind you of the recommended daily water volume.

It has no influence on the functioning of the other functions as there is no calorie, protein, carbohydrate or fat in the water.

How do I calculate calories if I eat in a restaurant?
You do not have to give up on the pleasure of going into a restaurant :). If you pay attention to what you eat and don't cheat yourself, you will make a good decision even when you can not determine the calorie content of a meal.
If you have been using calorie counting for some time, you will know without a calorie-chart that it is worth to ask for cooked potatoes instead of your french fries.

Why does the site calculates different calorie burning for different people?
This is because calorie burning of sports is calculated on the basis of the individual weight of the users.
For example: 10 minutes running a 120 kg person burns twice as many kcal as a 60 kg person.

Is there any way to add only kcal? (I've eaten a new meal I know 400 kcal, but I do not want to save it to the database).
Write "kcal" or "calorie" in the "What did you eat?" box.
Next, tell how many "pieces" you ate, then "I ate".
You can do the same with carbohydrate, protein, fat. These are called carbohydrates (nutrients), proteins (nutrients), fat (nutrients).

I would recommend a meal or a recipe to the common database. What are the rules?

General Rules for the Recommendation:

kaloriabazis.hu/blog/kozos_adatbazisba_ajanlas/34

Rules for recommending recipes:

kaloriabazis.hu/blog/receptfelvitel_haladoknak/39