Facing Up — The All-Powerful Food Diary

So, OK — I’m not going to eat between meals and I’m not going to take seconds and I’m going to walk for 3 miles. And yes, doing this regularly does work. The trick is in the “doing this regularly” part. And that’s where blogging helps. When I actually do my daily thought pieces (which kind of stopped during the election-season) I’m more committed. And my commitment has more power if I write down what I eat and do.

Weight Watchers is where I first learned to “Journal” what I eat. And the Weight Watcher food diaries are still helpful. It’s really nice to tuck their diary into my purse and write down my meals no matter where I am. But the written format has serious limitations compared to the computer tools that are now available.

With online and desktop diaries you can create charts of your progress, track exercise (and the calories burned) and in some — menus of regular meals and recipes.

I can’t seem to stick to just one journaling tool. I like the colorful charts of one tool and the ability to record recipes and log them as single servings in another and I love the moving-weighted-average weight chart of another. So, getting back on track is a little complicated for me as I get each of them set up for my renewed commitment. Luckily one of them has updated the software to make it easy to adjust goals (I thought I was going to have to create a New-Fake-Me.)

(clearing my throat)

First up is FitDay which has two versions: a free Online Diary and a Desktop Version (which is what I use.) I love FitDay’s colorful charts and the display on the opening page. They make it easy to track Overall progress as well as the relationship of Food-Eaten with Calories-Burned. Entering food is simple you just list everything you’ve eaten in a spreadsheet-like page. Exercise works exactly the same way. Standard foods and exercise are included in a database. All you have to do is select these.

The drawback to FitDay is that we eat a lot of casserole-type dishes. Mashups of vegetables & meat and Rice or Noodles or Potatoes (my favorite, “Zucchini Stuff” is the base of many of these meals.) Well, FitDay doesn’t make it easy to enter recipes. It’s possible to do by entering “Custom Foods” (which you also use to enter food that isn’t in their standard database). But (in the PC Desktop version), it’s a drag and if you get it wrong you pretty much have to start over.

Which is why I kept looking. . . . .

My dad discovered Nutribase. He was looking for something that would let him track specific proteins in his diet. And the Nutribase database includes amino acids. What I like is that it’s relatively easy to create recipes of regular foods and combine foods into meals. It’s really incredible. I can enter any recipe and specify how many servings it makes. Nutribase calculates the calories (actually all the nutrition information) for just that serving when you use it. Meals work pretty much the same way. If you have the same breakfast everyday you can group those foods into a meal — you can even have Nutribase enter it in your journal automatically.

Nutribase has very good (and customizable) reports. But, the grey background of the main window makes the charts a little less pleasing than the FitDay charts. Still, it’s much more powerful and Nutribase has become my main daily journal.

Finally. The last tool, The Hacker’s Diet Online isn’t a food journal. It’s a tool for tracking your weight. But, it has a twist. The author of these tools isn’t interested in his weight on a particular day. He’s created a tool that lets us track a moving-weighted-average of our weight. So the affect of eating a big Thanksgiving Dinner is spread over the two weeks that are included in the average.

The Charts produced by the Hacker’s Diet Online are really fun. He displays “Floaters” and “Sinkers” to emphasize your trends — are you making more or less progress than your goal?

John Walker (the author of the Hacker’s Diet) believes in a daily-weigh-in like I do. I am more successful at weight management if I monitor my weight everyday. But, I don’t expect instant results and it doesn’t depress me to see little change in my weight from day to day. If that lack of change in your weight does bother you, the Hacker’s Diet Online isn’t the tool for you. That moving weighted averages does NOT change quickly — that’s the whole point of it. But, for me, it’s perfect.

So, I’m spending this snowy day getting things set up in Nutribase again (happily I’ve got most of my recipes and meals already entered) and the Hacker’s Diet. What tools make your healthy goals easier to manage? And how easy are they to use?

(Crossposted at Eat4Today and The Confluence)

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