I'm using fitday.com as well. Actually, I bought their program just a week ago that you can download and install on your computer. It has a database inside so you just find the food you eat from their database and the amount, and it counts calories for you. You can also create custom foods and meals that you often eat. It really helps to visualize your progress. It has tons of other features too.
Before that I had an excel spreadsheet that I carried around everywhere with me and wrote down number of calories that I ate. Even before that, I used a daily planner to write down foods and calories.
I also bought a scale, so that I could weigh things like meats/vegetables/fruits and know exactly how many calories I'm getting. Sometimes it is very hard to judge by size.
Calorie counting can be very time consuming. Before I had fitday.com I used to go to nutrition websites, find the food I ate, figure the amount of it in a recipe, add all of them together, divide by number of portions, etc. Good news is that if you cook using the same recipe, you already know the total # of calories, you just need divide it by number of servings, so it becomes easier as you go along.
You can either write down just the foods you eat and amount and then figure calories later, or you can count calories immediately. Most of the time you know what you're eating during the day except if you're going out for lunch. Unless it is a chain or place that has its calorie count on internet, there is just no way of knowing what they put in those dishes. Something looking very innocent may infact be very rich. Personally, I prefer to pack my lunches (then I know the night before how many calories my lunch will be) and snacks. I've also been doing frozen dinners for lunch when there are no leftovers. Then calorie counting is easy, just look at the box!
