Counting Calories

About every diet plan I have ever attempted begins with the suggestion to keep a food diary.  Writing down everything that enters my mouth has never been on my top 10 fun things to do list!  In fact, I believe in most cases, I stuck with writing a food diary for about a week at the most!

So, two weeks ago my doctor suggested that I look at using www.myfitnesspal.com This is a website that I knew about and had used several years ago. It is a calorie counting tool.  Yes, this was one of the ways that I had kept a food diary that had lasted about a week. When I first used the website, it was just that -- only a website.  That was in a time when I owned a flip phone.

Now, the website has entered the age of the smart phone and apps!  Since my doctor showed me the app, I haven't missed a day logging my food and it is actually making a difference in how I am eating.

Maybe the app just appeals to my geeky side, but for whatever reason, I find it fun to keep track of the foods I am eating. A couple of  features keep me interesting in doing this!

First, it's  easy!  Entering foods into the app is simple.  You can search for items in their database which includes an amazing number of items already.  But, what I think is the coolest feature is  the barcode scanner where you can simply scan the package to enter an item.  

Now, I'm not a real cook, but there are a few things I like to make on a regular basis, like egg salad or a tuna dish.  Neither of these would be something easily found in their database, but there is a section where you can enter recipes and it will calculate the calories per serving.  Recently, when I made a few baked goods, I decided to enter the recipe to see what the calorie content worked out for a little pecan tart.  It did take me a few minutes to figure out how to get the recipe correctly entered, but in the end realizing that one little tart was over 100 calories and nearly 1/12 of what I should eat for the day, kept me from eating the whole batch!

But, the coolest part for me of this handy little app is that you can link it to Runkeeper!  Runkeeper is the app that I use to keep track of my walking and running.  When you use this as part of your exercise routine, and link it to my fitness pal, the calories that you burn with your exercise count as "negative calories" for my fitness pal.  This means when I take a walk and burn 200-300 calories, my total calorie intake for the day is increased in My Fitness Pal by that amount! 

I have always understood that keeping a food diary helps keep you intentional about what you are eating.  For me, the drudgery of carrying a little notebook and pen around was always a stumbling block--in addition to having to figure out the calories, etc, by looking them up.  My Fitness Pal eliminates all that!  The highly visual app helps combine the food diary with helpful nutritional information and feed back. 

It has only been two weeks, but that's twice as long as the last food diary I kept!