When I first started trying to lose weight, I found it very frustrating that some weeks I would drop a couple of pounds, and some weeks I would gain a couple of pounds. With a haphazard approach to exercise and eating, I was defeating any progress I made with a few bad choices in my daily menu.

This problem initially led me to create this website, mostly as a personal tool to help me keep my calorie count under control. The project quickly grew into quite a large undertaking as I kept adding new features that I wanted for my own satisfaction.

Many visitors to the site stopping by just to read the articles may not realize we have a whole set of other features available to registered users, such as our food logging and analysis system - which we will take a look at in detail below.

Why You Need A Food Log

Plain and simple - we all tend to underestimate the number of calories we take in on any given day. We also tend to overestimate the number of vitamins and minerals we are getting, as well as how many calories we are burning in our daily activities. It would be nice if walking around the mall shopping for two hours really burned off 1000 calories, but unless you were lugging around about a hundred pounds of bags up a stairway all that time, chances are it was probably more like 200-300 calories.

This is where a food log comes into play. You enter all the foods you eat during the day (and we do mean everything). Then, with one click of a button you can view a complete nutritional breakdown of your day's food intake. It really only takes a few minutes and can really open your eyes.

Case in point: I work in a restaurant, and there are lots of little "goodies" laying around that one might like to munch on (big bins of tortilla chips, croutons, crispy bacon slices, cheese, etc). I often would wonder why I wasn't losing weight as fast as I should have been until I started punching all these little "extras" into the food log. When you have to stare at the number 150 (the number of calories in a strip of bacon) on the screen right next to the number 15 (for that large handful of carrots you had for lunch), things fall into perspective really quick.

Once I start thinking about the fact I will have to run another mile on the treadmill just to burn off that one piece of bacon, it starts to seem less appealing the next time my hand reaches for that little metal bin in the service window.

Another great feature of the food log is that you can actually see how much of your nutritional needs are being met by your diet alone. People tend to assume because they eat a small serving of mixed vegetables with dinner that they are "all set". Even eating healthy all day long, you will likely find you are way off on most of your recommended daily intakes.

I challenge you to take the "one week - 100% challenge", where you meet 100% of all your vitamins and minerals every day for a week - and see how much better you feel. It's amazing how the body can adapt to survive off the minimal levels of nutrients the average American eats - hence why most people in the US are addicted to coffee or other caffeinated beverages - their bodies are in a constant "slump" from malnutrition. The food log system not only helps you keep track of what you have eaten, it will even help you make better food choices for your next meal!

And the best part about this all? It's totally free, private and confidential, and takes just 2-3 minutes of your day. Isn't your health worth a few moments of your day?

You will need to be a registered user of the site to use the food log features, so click HERE to sign up for a free account (this also only takes a minute!).

Step One: Go To The Fitness Center

Step Two: Enter Your Foods

The database has literally thousands of foods to choose from and offers complete nutritional information on each item, allowing you to get a very detailed look into your diet.

You can use google-like search terms such as + and - or quotation marks around certain words, remember to keep the search phrase as short as possible to get the maximum number of results (Example: Use "egg" instead of "scrambled eggs").

Step Three: Select Your Food

Choose the food that most closely matches the food you are looking for. If you cannot find a certain food item, you can easily add it into the master database.

Step Four: Adding A Food To The Databse

You can easily add a food to the database, filling in any available nutritional information found on the label in a variety of measurements (nanograms,milligrams,grams,or as a percentage of RDA). Once added to the database, the food will be available for all users on the site to log.

Step Five: Specify Quantity

You can choose the quantity and portion of the food, based on the most commonly found sizes. You can also specify the time and date the food was consumed, allowing you to track your eating habits by the time of day.

Step Six: Add Your Daily Food Intake

Be sure that you get everything on the list, no fair cheating and "forgetting" to add that snickers bar!

When you add a food, a little face will appear next to it in the log - a green smile means it is an excellent choice, red frown means it is a poor choice, and the yellow face means it is an acceptable choice.

Hovering over the face for an individual food will pop up a "nutritional density score" - that is, how much nutritional "bang" you get for your calorie. The site will suggest several other foods from that same category which would be better choices.

Step Six: Check Out The RDI Chart

As you enter your foods, a chart on the right side keeps a quick tally of your basic nutrient intake. When a line is green, it means you have consumed your recommended daily amount of that nutrient. A red line means you are still deficient. You can use the "Top Foods" menu choice to help locate some good sources of those nutrients.

When you have entered all your food, we get to the good part - click on the little button in the corner that says "Detailed Analysis".

Step Seven: View Your Results!

Once you click on the "detailed analysis" button, you will be taken to a comprehensive report on your nutritional intake with numerous graphs and charts that I will explain in further detail below.

The macronutrient intake graph simple shows you how many grams of each of the four different types you have consumed for the day.

This graph will show you what percentage of your diet came from what macro nutrients. Ideally, a majority of you calories should come from carbohydrates, with protein and fats contributing close to equal amounts. Each person will have a different requirement for each group based on sex, age and fitness level. We will examine those numbers in the next chart.

This chart shows you what percentage of your personalized RDI you reached for each macro nutrient category. These percentages are based on your own personal statistics (This is one of the reasons we ask you so many questions in the signup process).

Here we take a look at the breakdown of different fat types in your diet. You want to try and keep the saturated fat to a few grams a day tops, and avoid the trans fats altogether. Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated are the "good" fats, be sure to get at least 10-15% of your calories from fats, they are essential to body function and aid in the absorption of certain vitamins from your food.

When you add foods to the log, it will figure out how much water you took in (remember, some fruits and vegetables have very high water contents). And of course, you made sure you added those glasses of water into your food log already, right?

Here you will see the percentage of your daily recommended daily intake of vitamins your diet entailed.

Here you will see the percentage of your daily recommended daily intake of minerals your diet entailed.

Take a detailed look at your amino acid intake for the day. The "essential" amino acids (The ones your body cannot make by itself) have red bars to indicate appropriate intake levels. Again, you can use the "top foods" menu feature to help you find foods to supplement individual amino acids.

Check out your intake of various antioxidant compounds. Antioxidant information is not available on all foods in the database, so the results may be partially incomplete, but it will give you a good basic idea of what you are getting into your system. Check out the article "Antioxidant All Stars" on this site to help you find good sources.

This chart shows you how many calories you took in for the day, and how many you burned off via exercise and your BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate - the number of calories your body will burn off in a give day on its own, based on your age, sex and activity level).

This calorie budget "score card" breaks down the data from the above chart, telling you exactly how many calories your deficit/surplus was, and what that translates to in pounds of fat.

This custom graphic displays what your body fat composition is by percentage, the red in the graph indicates body fat, the green indicates lean muscle tissue. You can see what category your body fat percentage falls into as well.

This chart shows you exactly what you macro nutrient needs are (Fats, carbohydrates and proteins) as well as the recommended caloric intake for someone of your age, sex and activity level.

This chart shows you what your "target heart rate zone" is (The range of beats per minute of your heart where you are achieving optimum aerobic workout benefits). It also give you a "optimal heart rate zone" , which is where your body will be achieving maximum results.

And finally, you will see a graphical chart that shows you what your BMI (body mass index) is. This is based on a simple formula using your height and weight. One thing about BMI - it does not account for body shape, so a very muscular weightlifter might show up under the "obese" category, so use this number only as a rough guideline.

Thats It!

Comments

"Looks pretty interesting, definitely going to sign up for an account and check this out! Beats looking things up in a little book like I used to back in the 80s!" Comment Posted By Guest On Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 - 8:46 pm