Before I started my journey I ate without thinking. Mindless munching and grazing on snacks, breads, juices, ice cream, pasta, cookies, etc. with no thought about how many calories or what nutritional elements I was consuming. I knew I had to turn that around if I was going to be successful. Part of my strategy had to be keeping exact track of my caloric and nutritional intake.
For the first few days I did this in my head and kept a running count of calories. This was a good first step but I knew I needed more detail and accuracy. Plus I wanted to know more about my nutritional intake. Then the light bulb went off... "I have this Blackberry Storm, maybe there's a calorie tracking app for it". I check it out and there are a number of them.
I looked at all the free apps and they were well intended but not as detailed and easy to use as I wanted. I wanted an app that I could weave into my daily lifestyle. Something that would allow me to quickly track the foods I eat and the exercise I do. Something that had both web based and mobile access.
Enter MyNetDiary.com. Exactly what I was looking for. A web based service with an easy to use mobile app. It's not a free ($60 per year) but it has all the bells and whistles you would want. I figure $5 a month is well worth it if it helps keep me on track.
I've been using it for a few days and I'm very impressed. For each meal you do a search on the food you eat (thousands of foods), enter the amount you ate and whamo... it's logged. After you exercise you enter that into the Activity section and that gets figured into your daily calorie burn. You can track your weight loss, nutritional intake, get reports and charts... on and on. It also can post updates to Twitter about your meals, activities, weigh ins, etc. Look to the side bar on the right to see a sample.
While entering info is easier on the web interface, the Blackberry Storm interface is pretty darn good. I believe it works with both IPhone and Blackberry. You can check it out at http://www.mynetdiary.com/. I feel good that this will help me. Hope it helps you too.
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The blackberry thing sounds like a good system, I was way about the grazing, every time I got near food, I'd pretty much eat it.
ReplyDeleteQuestion for you, what is that gadget/widget thing you have in the top right of your blog tracking the Starting Weight, Goal Weight, etc? I'd like to use that on my blog too.
matt.. that's just an HTML table I put together.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like good info. I don't have an iphone or blackberry, though. I use www.sparkpeople.com and just keep up with it on my laptop. Tracking is an absolute must! :)
ReplyDeleteHello! Just came across your blog, I'm pretty new to the blogging world too. Another great website is livestrong.com and its daily calorie tracking and food logs are free. I used to use it every day before I got a GoWear Fit and now I use their website which you have to pay from but goes with the device.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, I shamelessly ripped off HTML table. Hope you don't mind.
ReplyDeleteno problem Matt. enjoy!
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I've been using sparkpeople on my iPod and love it. It makes tracking so much easier, doesn't it? And its nice to have it mobile and on my computer.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'd love the HTML table..but can't figure out how to rip it off...(I'm untechy that way...) Would you share?
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