Tracking Food and Virtual 5K Winners
| August 19, 2011 | Posted by Carrie under attitude about food, counting calories, Virtual 5K |
I’ve mentioned before that I used Lose It for tracking food and exercise when I was losing weight. I’ve been using it again to help me keep things in check.
However, I’ve also heard about My Fitness Pal and wanted to give that one a try.
Awesome app. First, it’s free. Second, the food database is huge. Third – It’s even got a barcode scanner! It’s pretty cool to just scan the barcode of the product and all the nutritional information shows up!
But, the best part is the nutrient analysis! Not only does it give you a daily summary for all the macronutrients (and a few others), but it also includes goals for each and will show you a positive or negative balance.
What I’ve learned – The app suggests a goal of 30g/day for sugar. It doesn’t differentiate between natural sugar and processed sugar. For example, I had pineapple and cherries in my morning oatmeal and that was 12g of sugar. Add in the bbq sauce I had with my lunch of 10 and the 9g from my homemade simple syrup that goes in my coffee and I’m done with my sugar intake by lunch time. Not good. For the day, I had 82g.
Because we were at a picnic dinner one night where the food choices weren’t so healthy, I ate a really light meal. When I got home and was still hungry, I took a look at the nutrition for the day and realized I was a little low in carbs, So, I had some veggie soup. It was filling and balanced out my day.
Here’s a sample of a day (as you can see, I’ve cut back on sugar a bit since the day I was talking about above – I wish the report separated out ‘added sugar’).
Although that was a one day analysis, I’ll definitely be looking at bigger picture on all of this. While the scale hasn’t shown the progress I think I’m making, I know I’m doing well and I’m feeling better already.
Please take a moment to go visit Jill at Life As I See It – she’s hosting the Fitness Friday Blog Hop. Lots of great blogs to visit.
And now for a final wrap up for the Not Over the Hill Virtual 5K. Thanks again to everyone who participated. Here are a few more links to some who blogged about their runs.
Just hopped over from the blog hop and YAY I will email you my info!
Thanks for hosting the virtual 5k!
Christy recently posted..How Fit Does the President Think You Are?
I have the same issue with my nutrition tracker – sugar is just sugar and fat is just fat.
I’ll take a look at the program you’re using. I like mine, but am always looking for another, better program.
KT80 recently posted..Tuesday Night Running
I think food tracking, if you are trying to lose some weight or in a nutritional rut can be really helpful. I’m sure that seeing how you are doing in black and white (like the sugar example) can really be helpful.
Dina recently posted..30 Before 30
Found you on the Fitness Friday Blog Hop.
I like to track too… have been using FitDay on my pc for years. Good to know what we are eating, and perhaps missing.
I sent you an email!
I have myfitnesspal on my to-do list. I’ve heard great things about using this app.
jill conyers recently posted..The Routine of Races and Long Runs
yayyyy!!! thanks for checking out my blog…excited to follow you now as well! i loved your post about this app…it sounds really helpful. i have been nervous about my sugar intake because i eat SO MUCH fruit. i just love it…i am scared to type my info into one of those apps and figure out how much sugar that is…eeek!
Following from Fitness Friday. I have used Fitness Pal before with success. It’s pretty cool and very easy!
Lanae (@Hungrigyrl) recently posted..Guilty Pleasure: Burrito Baby
I’ve used this app and think it’s great – I’m just really lazy about tracking food sometimes. *sigh*
Thanks again for a fun virtual 5K!
Amy recently posted..Fitness Friday and Happy 100th Post!
It’s hard to get started with the food tracking, but I find that it gets so much easier the more I get going. The apps remember so many foods that it’s easy to pull up my frequent items. Creatures of habit, we are and it makes it easier.