Lasting weight loss success boils down to mastering a set of skills. One of the most important skills you can learn is how to read nutrition labels.

A nutrition label provides the nutritional information for a given food. At the very least it will show you..

• The number of calories in a serving.
• The number of grams of carbohydrates per serving.
• The number of grams of protein in a serving.
• The number of grams of fat in a serving.

Unfortunately, no standard format for nutrition labels exists. Some are big, while others are barely visible. Some are quite detailed while some barely give you the basics. In some countries labels are becoming standardized which will make label reading much easier.

First let’s begin with learning what a nutrition label looks like and what type of information it contains. Below is the nutritional information for 1% milk. Match the numbers on the left with their corresponding explanations below.

1. Serving size tells you what amount of the food or drink the nutritional information is based on. Some nutrition panels will also tell you how many servings are in the package or container. Look carefully at the serving size. In foods like potato chips for instance, the nutritional information is typically based on 30g. There may be 2, 3 or more servings in the bag you are about to consume which obviously doubles or triples the number of calories consumed.

2. Calories are a measure of energy. Your energy needs depend on factors such as your height, weight, gender, activity level and genetics. Consuming too many calories results in fat gain. Again, remember that the calorie total on the nutrition label is for the specified serving size only and that the package could, and often does, contain multiple servings.

3. Total fat tells you how much fat is in a serving. On some, but definitely not all labels, the total will be broken down into the four different types of fat, namely saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and trans. In this particular example, it even breaks the polyunsaturated fat down into its two components - omega-6 and omega-3 essential fatty acids.

4. In this section, the two most important totals are the cholesterol and sodium. Obviously if you have high or borderline-high cholesterol you want to keep an eye on how much you are consuming. If you have high blood pressure, you really need to be diligent in reducing your sodium intake. As a rule, the amount of sodium should be no more than double the number of calories.

5. Tells you how many grams of carbohydrates are in a serving. A detailed nutrition panel will - as this one has - break down the carbohydrate total detailing how much fiber, sugar and starch is included in the total number. Obviously the higher the fiber the better.

As far as the sugar number goes, you must do a little investigation to determine whether the sugar listed is natural sugar (fructose in fruit, lactose in dairy) or sugar that’s been added by the manufacturer (glucose, high fructose corn syrup).

And finally, starch tells you how much starch is in the product. In some cases, a product won’t have starches listed but will - like in the case of my daughter’s whole grain Cheerios® - have corn starch listed in the ingredient list.

6. Tells you how many grams of protein are in a serving.

7. Not all labels give you vitamin totals. Frankly I never look at this part of the label. I take a high-quality multi-vitamin each day which provides me with everything I need.

8. Down the right-hand-side you see numbers signifying what percent of the daily total is provided in a serving. Those percentages on is a total of 2000 calories per day. Just in-case you are wondering how many calories you should be consuming each day, we’ll be covering that in an upcoming chapter.

Using Nutrition Labels To Make Good Decisions

If you’re like most people, you read them looking first to see how many calories the food has and then to see how much fat lurks within. The problem is…

These numbers mean nothing unless…

A. You know how many calories you should be eating each day and at each meal.
B. You know how much fat, protein and carbohydrate you need at each meal.

Once you know how many grams of protein, carbohydrates and fat you need at each meal or snack, you simply look at the nutritional information for each component of your meal and compare it to your meal requirements.

This works for eating at restaurants also. Most restaurants make the nutritional information for their menu available either online or in print. Simply find the entrees that match or come very close to your protein, carb and fat requirements.

I’ll give you a personal example:

My goal for each meal is to get 28 grams of protein, 36 grams of carbs and 12 grams of fat. When looking for acceptable fast-food choices, I came across Wendy’s® chili. If you look at the nutritional information, you’ll see that a large chili contains the following:

Protein = 25g
Fat= 9g
Carbohydrates = (35g - 8g of fiber) = 27 net grams

This comes really close to my goal, but without knowing my DER (daily energy requirements), these numbers would mean nothing.

Now you might think that because Wendy’s chili is an acceptable meal, that all restaurant chili is O.K. Not necessarily. Let’s look at another restaurant’s version. In southern Ontario where I live, there’s a chain of coffee shops/restaurants called Tim Horton’s ®.

When you look at the nutrition information for their chili, you’ll see not all chili is created equal:

Protein = 26g
Fat = 19g
Carbohydrates = (17g - 4g of fiber) = 13 net grams

Overall, it’s not too bad. A little high in fat, but again, without knowing my nutritional “numbers”, this information would be useless. But knowing what my requirements are allows me to use nutritional information to make the best choices possible.

One of the best ways to make sure you’re eating enough calories and to make sure you’re getting the right amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates is to use nutritional software. Most programs will allow you to manually enter the nutritional information for your favorite foods, making it a snap to create meal plans and track your food intake.

Here are a couple of programs I’d recommend:

FitDay- A trusted name in nutritional information software, FitDay is easy to use and provides a vast database of foods and exercise selections. The biggest downside to using FitDay I’ve found is the daily food log does not allow you to enter your food separately for each meal. It only keeps a running total of all the food you’ve eaten in a day. Because of this, you can’t see if each meal is properly balanced with the right amount of protein, carbs and fat.

From a purchasing standpoint, FitDay does not offer a free trial of their software. They only provide you with some screenshots to see how it looks. Click here if you’d like to check out FitDay’s nutritional software.

DietPower - By far, this is the best nutrition software I’ve seen. It’s easy to use, comes with an extensive database and allows you to add custom foods and even entire recipes to make logging your food quick and easy.

DietPower allows you to download the program and try it free for 15 days. As you move through the program, you’re given the chance to read their extensive and very helpful tutorials. Click here to get your free trial download of DietPower.