Tracking Calories...Ugh


Yeah, sounds right.

Anyone who has ever "dieted" knows the adage of "calories in vs. calories out". How do you know exactly? Well you wear a hr monitor and maybe a pedometer to judge calories out and you use a web tracker to log calories consumed. I am going to focus on two of the main places that help to log your food intake. The first is Weight Watchers Online and the second is My Fitness Pal.

I have found that the only way to truly be successful in losing weight is to track my food intake somewhere. It makes me accountable and aware of what I am eating, and how many calories are in my food choices. I hate doing it, I find it tedious, but if I want to lose weight I have to do it!

I know that a lot of people have great success with Weight Watchers Online. Personally, I didn't like it. It was expensive, although relatively easy to use and had a mobile app. The points system just never made sense to me, an avocado is full of healthy fat and good for you but worth so many points I would never eat 1/2. You can eat endless amounts of veggies that are no points. That isn't really true, they have calories. Again, for me it just didn't make sense. If I had still had to log food why not just count calories.

When using a pay site make sure you read the fine print so that you don't end up with the same problem I encountered. I recently found that I was being charged for services I hadn't used in eight months. I thought I had paid for a six month subscription, and was unaware that it renewed automatically. I also have an issue with the level of customer service I received. I was placed on hold for an hour to an outsourced agent who couldn't help me. In the end I received another phone call and was refunded for the last three charges. It was something, but I would have appreciated more considering how many of my cell phone minutes were wasted.

I have been using My Fitness Pal, and I honestly believe that they offer many of the same services for FREE. There is still an online community and you set your goals. The food bank is interactive and linked with all the users so many foods are already entered in the data base. There is also a barcode reader in the app to make it easy to scan foods and add them automatically. (WW also has a barcode reader but it is a seperate app). My Fitness Pal also allows you to link with your friends, and you can chose if you want your food diary to be public or private. I have made mine public so that the Nutritionist and Trainers can look at it and make suggestions on what I can do better. You can also build recipes for easier meal additions.

I really like that I can link to my friends on My Fitness Pal so that we can cheer each other on after a tough workout, a weight loss, and when you hit your calorie goal for the day. I know that for me having a free service is better, but on the other hand some people are more accountable when money is on the line. In my opinion you just have to do what is right for you, explore your options, and read the fine print.

This is the same reason I love my fitbit smart pedometer. I links directly with My Fitness Pal so that I can log calories in and they show up where I am tracking calories out, and vice versa. I can also link with my friends to see who has the highest step count each week, and I find that really motivating. I have the Fitbit One Activity and Sleep tracker. I love that it tracks my sleep, how many flights of stairs, my active minutes, my steps and milage, and my calories. It uses bluetooth to connect to the free app on my android phone. I love that the app and tracking are free so you only have to shell out the initial cost of the device. It is great at tracking distance and moderate activity, but I still find the need to wear my HR monitor when I am doing a tough workout so that I can truly calculate my calorie burn. However, if you need an incentive just to start moving it is fantastic.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Going, going... Gone (and Goofy for good!)

Healing starts with Forgiveness and...good food.

My Story