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I'm always looking for easy, fairly fun ways to control my diet. I usually just keep a running track in my mind of what I've eaten in the past few days. Sometimes this helps me say no to the cookies or the extra servings of something yummy. Other times, it just makes me feel guilty that I can eat so poorly and not seem to care.
Occasionally, I jump on the food diary wagon and log my food choices for a few days. I don't use any kind of formal program. I just jot things into a xanga.com entry. It doesn't include calorie count or even carb count. It's just the food and how much of it I hate (like 4 peanut butter crackers or 2 chocolate chip cookies). This helps me see trends in blood sugars or headaches when I do decide to tackle this, but it's extremely rare therefore quite unhelpful.
This morning, as I was getting ready for class, I was listening to the Today show. It's my usual morning routine to have Matt, Meredith, Anne, and Al playing in the background as I put on my mascara and blush. Sometimes I learn useful information (like medical tax deductions have to be at least 7.5% of your income); sometimes I learn completely random tidbits (the camera guy has a "twin").
Today was a useful morning. The Health portion of the show came on to discuss weight loss. Apparently, Prevention magazine has a "My Health Tracker" which documents your food, your weight, your activity, even your headache or sleep patterns. It sounded too good to be true. Maybe it cost money. Maybe you had to have a subscription.
As soon as I got home from class, I logged onto Prevention's website to check out "My Health Tracker." I signed up without any problems. No money, no subscription necessary. I entered my current weight, my height, my usual activity. I logged my food choices for the beginning of the day.
It was simple, easy, and quick. You can search for food choices (includes everything from Wendy's French fries to Eggo waffles). It will calculate your average caloric activity. It even forms nifty graphs over periods of time on everything from activity, calories, blood pressure, or water intake.
As the day comes to a close, my total caloric intake was 1,800 calories. My carb to protein to fat ratio was a little out of balance (more fat than protein with carbs leading the pack). My activity was normal since I didn't get to work out today. And my current weight and the number of hours I slept last night are documented.
It also calculates how many calories I should consume (and therefore burn) to get to my goal weight by January. Fifteen hundred calories per day will let me lose 0.2 pounds per day at a normal activity level. Therefore, if I'm working out on a regular basis, I can consume about 2,000 calories per day and still get my end result.
I'm hoping that this fun tool will help me lose weight. I'm also hoping that it gives me an insight into my blood sugars. In my usual blood sugar logging, I rarely see food patterns unless I point out that I had pizza or cheesecake that caused a high. Just maybe, this can help me judge how to bolus for high fat foods. Maybe it'll even teach me a few new carb amounts for certain foods I'm unfamiliar with.
