Another interesting approach that can simplify things is to track calories when you buy them rather than when you eat them.<p>For instance, suppose that on Monday you go to the grocery store and buy a 3 pound ham (100 calories per 85 g serving), 1 half gallon of whole milk (8 servings at 160 calories per serving), a loaf of sliced bread (20 slices at 100 calories per slice), and a bottle of ketchup (33 servings of 20 calories each).<p>You record in your food log 5541 calories for Monday.<p>Tuesday you buy no food or drink, just consuming stuff you previously bought. So you record 0 calories for Tuesday.<p>Wednesday, you eat breakfast at home, and then for lunch you buy a Son of Baconator from Wendy&#x27;s (650 calories), and a 20 oz Pepsi (250 calories) from the vending machine at work. Dinner comes out of your fridge. So Wednesday you log 900 calories.<p>...and so on.<p>This kind of log is useless for determining exactly what or how much you ate on a particular day, but over time your average daily calorie purchase will be very close to your average daily calorie consumption.<p>This is probably not a good approach when you are trying to make a change in your eating habits and need to know exactly what is going on day to day, but once you&#x27;ve gotten settled in your new eating habits and just need to make sure you aren&#x27;t drifting off track this can be a good approach.