A Review of My Food Diary

One thing that works well for dieters is keeping a food diary. I have tried keeping track of calorie intake and daily exercise with a spreadsheet and it never works for me. Maybe it is because there is no feedback from the spreadsheet or it could be partly because I constantly forget to update the information. An online program called My Food Diary is working well to help me stay on track. It is just more than an exercise and calorie log. There is a lot of information gained from entering in your goals, daily exercise, and food intake.

Details

My Food Diary is an online, subscription based service. I joined with a seven-day free trial and fell in love with it, so I kept the subscription. The cost is $9 per month but it is worth it.

I keep track of my calorie intake, daily exercise, and body measurements through the website. At the end of the day, you see your food intake which is broken down similar to a nutrition label. I can see how many calories I ate, how many were from fat, and the nutritional intake of the food I ate. At the end of the day, you get an overview of everything.

The overview tells you how many calories you need to go in order to reach your goal. For me, I need to net 1200 calories a day. The more I exercise, the more My Food Diary tells me to eat so I maintain that 1200 calorie intake. The system is set up so that you cannot lose more than 1.5 pounds per week. If you do more exercise or net fewer calories, the system lets you know that too.

Tracking water intake is another neat option. Staying hydrated is important and I can tell the system what my water goal is. As long as you log water consumption with your meals, the system will track it for you.

Recipes are another neat feature with My Food Diary. I can add in my favorite recipes and it gives me the nutritional value. This is really important if you modify recipes from magazines and books. Many times I will replace cow's milk with almond milk. This changes the nutritional value and calorie value. The recipe feature allows me to accurately see what I am eating.

Why it Works

This system works for me because it allows me to see the nutritional value of what I am eating. Tracking my food intake for two weeks with My Food Diary, shows me that I need to work on reducing the amount of fat in my diet. Although I usually stay within the net calorie limit, my fat intake is higher than it should be. I have to see where I can cut fat out of my diet so that I can maximize my weight loss.

Another area I need to work on is protein intake. This is another challenging area for me. I am in the treatment phase for breast cancer. Chemotherapy was part of that treatment. The week following chemo was difficult for me because it affected what I could eat. Spicy and peppery foods are out. For the first couple of days after chemo I have difficulty swallowing, so bland soups are the mainstay of the diet for a week. This leads to high sodium intake and a lower protein intake. Thankfully, chemo is now in the past and I can focus on eating better and incorporating more high protein foods into my diet.

I really like My Food Diary. If you decide to give it a try, drop me a line and let me know.

--Lynda