Tracking your food

I am to the point where I am seriously considering tracking my food.  Mary even bought a digital kitchen scale today.

My question involves the various places you can track your food.

Which one works best for you?  Why?

Which one is least effective for you and why?

cant wait to find out.....im with you, i dont know what, where or how many...!!!

George, and Tara, I am a fan of fitday.com. It has tons of foods, and I love the breakdown it gives me about how much of my daily food percentage was carbs, fat and protein. The carbs scare me sometimes. LOL

There is a weight tracker, and you can of course add your own foods in there if they're not in already.

I've also used the OH tracker a few times.

If I can't be on the computer all day, I write down everything I eat, weight and all, and what time (for my own knowledge...and when I take my vits!) and go back and add it in.

Hope this helps.

I love My Fitness Pal. www.myfitnesspal.com/ But as I got more active and was out of the house more I wanted a tracker I could use on my Droid phone. I found one called Calorie Counter (original name, huh?) and it has an online counterpart called Fat Secret. fatsecret.com/  Everything is synced so whether I add stuff on my phone or or my desktop, it automatically show in both places. I wish I could merge My Fitness Pal and Fat Secret! They each have features I wish the other had but both are equally easy to use and have great data bases. Plus you can add custom food anytime you can't find what you need.

But if I had to choose between them, I'd got with My Fitness Pal.  I can customize my plan, such as tell it I was 800 calories a day and I want 40% protein, 30% fats and 30% carbs and it figure it all out and tells me OK, you get 90g protein, 22g fat and 60g carbs for the day.  It also has user added custom foods, you know which ones they are and can verify that the info is correct so later you can see a food has 5 confirmations so it's a good bet it's accurate. You can print reports, track your weight, exercise and measurements. You can have lists of your foods and your meals to make adding regular foods faster. You can track your water with the little glass widget thingy. And it has a message board.  You can have 5 categories so I also added Fiber and Sugar so I can track those. I use these...

Totals	742	54	23	94	7	16
Your Daily Goal	800	60	22	90	25	24
Remaining	58	6	-1	-4	18	8
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Fiber	Sugar

Fat Secret also let's you add custom foods, track weight and exercise. I really like the recipe builder it has, it's very accurate and much easier to use than Sparks, at least to me. It's a bit more community minded with a journal, challenges, buddies, etc. all if you want, not required. It has 6 food categories you can customize. I currently use these...

WW(pts)	Fat(g)	Carbs(g)	Fiber(g)	Prot(g)	KCals
15.0	21.21	71.50	11.5	90.84	775

You'll just have to check them both out for yourself!  I tried OH's tracker, Live Strong, Sparks, Fitday and one other and always went back to MFP.

I used to use fitday.com and have used dailyplate.com.

I started using the health tracker on here and like it just as well and it's easier than going to a different website.  You go to My OH and then to health tracker.

Karla

I use fitday and love it!!   I have all my favorite foods/recipes already added so it's easy each day to just click on what I want..

I have a long day a work today so I added a couple of extra snacks to the list... but here is my sample for today ( I only track calories and protein).  It's also easy to go back and edit it during the day or in the evening. 

Food Name	Amount	Unit	Cals	Fat (g)	Carbs (g)	Prot (g)	Delete
		Total	1,000	0.0	0.0	62.0
click		serving grams kg lb oz	120	0.0	0.0	15.0
sf apple cider		serving grams kg lb oz	30	0.0	0.0	0.0
homemade Wendy's chili		serving grams kg lb oz	175	0.0	0.0	16.0
ff jello		serving grams kg lb oz	10	0.0	0.0	0.0
100 cal snack		serving grams kg lb oz	100	0.0	0.0	1.0
popcorn 1c		serving grams kg lb oz	90	0.0	0.0	6.0
skinny cow		serving grams kg lb oz	140	0.0	0.0	4.0
battered cod		serving grams kg lb oz	220	0.0	0.0	15.0
ketchup		serving grams kg lb oz	15	0.0	0.0	0.0
southbeach whipped berry bar		serving grams kg lb oz	100	0.0	0.0	5.0
		Total	1,000	0.0	0.0	62.0

tryed this earlyer and added in my charts nad it made a mess so here goes agian

George - I used fitday.com for years - I mean I can literally go back and tell you what I ate most days in 2004 and I like the tracking in fitday and the journal
HOWEVER I just found a different site called fitclick.com
it has one major feture I love that I haven't found at any of the other sites - I tell it how many cals, break down % of carbs, protein and fats and it suggests complete menus - I can go in and use or edit them and when adding my own I can save whole meals or reciptes and drop those in - either menus and recipets they have or ones I put in  - then each day I get up and there is a complete menu broken down into how many ever snacks (3) and meals (3) I want - all the stats are listed for each one - I can click on one of two tabs - meals planned or meals eaten - in the meals eaten I can chose add planned meal, add food or add meal (one I saved either thiers or mine or a random one it will suggest) each food has a swap choice - so if you don't eat carrots and they suggest them you hit swap and it will offer you another veggie actually a list of them

the whole being able to put it in and then have the meu /meal saved even after I change what I actually ate is awesome.

it is a beta version - they are suppose to be adding a mobile app - waiting for that :)
the only thing I am not jazzed with is the exersize tracker/planer - I may just not be using it right either LOL

I like that I can change things as I go but have an over all plan ready and in place a week in advace - oh it also will write you a grocery list- and if a food is entered in  by a user it is marked as such - I always double check those

I have used fitday for years. love that as a website I can access it anywhere and anytime.  It has an extensive database and allows me to enter custom foods.  However, I'm at a point where I need simplicity in my life and going to yet another website with another password was daunting on some days.  OH has a new Health Tracker that is just as good as fitday.  It's right her on OH so no need for additional passwords. Go to My OH and selecte Health Tracker to track food intake and activity caloric burn. The database is suprisingly complete but there is an option to add custom items, recipes (like a builder where you can add ingredients together) and even a menu (a lunch you eat every day can be named and contain all of those seperate items for a single entry). It counts your calories and posts your entriesmuch like fitday in an easy to read format.  Also there is a nutritional "label" with your daily totals as well as a pie chart breaking down your macronutrients and a place to check off your water intake.

I'm different.  I use sparkpeople.com.  I find it easy to use, have a custom list of "my favorites" and plug my meals in from that list most of the time.  You can also transfer meals from day to day if you eat the same thing over and over.  It's free, simple to use and works for me.