Superstar diet tracker

Last fall, I started on the hunt for an easy, convenient, and flexible website and/or app to track and analyze food intake to use for myself and my patients.  After trying out several websites and apps, I am excited to share what I think is the most amazing, free solution!  By the way, I am in no way affiliated with this website, I simply love their system!

What is this amazing diet tracker?

MyFitnessPal.com will track not only diet, but also exercise quickly and easily.  Plus, it is available as an app for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Phone!  Here are a bunch of reasons this system/app is so highly rated:

• Fast: It is easy to use, with only a few seconds needed to enter foods or exercise.  You can save meals and copy them easily across days with just a few taps, so once you have your basic info in there it is even faster!
• Easy: The interface is simple, clear, easy to navigate, and quick to understand.  I have been using this system for months and I think I have tried every single feature and I have been able to sort out everything I need.
• Find any food: It has the best database of food information I’ve been able to find in ANY system, including lots of more obscure, health food store brands, Canadian brands, restaurant meals, and many other options.  This means that no matter what you eat, you will be able to track it!  It even has a barcode scanner so you can scan packaging and find exactly the right match.
• Recipes and custom foods: You can also enter your own recipes and custom foods, so if there is something you can’t find in the huge database, you can still track it!
• Syncing: It syncs between the app and the website, so you only have to enter info once wherever is most convenient for you at that time and it is updated everywhere.
• Free: This one is pretty self-explanatory!

Why should you track what you eat?

• When people track what they eat, weight loss doubles!
• Tracking what you eat instantly makes you more accountable and in most cases, leads to instant behaviour change without all the thinking, agonizing, and sometimes procrastinating that most people experience when trying to change.
• It is educational to really understand what you eat – many people make healthy food choices but may be unknowingly eating more or less calories than they need or be missing out in key nutritional areas.
• You can measure yourself against concrete goals for things like calories, fibre, servings of vegetables, and anything else that matters to you – if you don’t know what you’re doing, it is hard to measure success.
• It makes it much easier to work with your naturopathic doctor to lose weight when you can review your diet in detail together – I work with patients to help improve their food choices and it helps a lot to look at their diet so I can make specific and helpful suggestions.