We received an interesting comment the other day from skuud:
Is there a way to use FitDay if you cook your own food, or is there an alternate site I could use? Otherwise, it seems to only work for people who eat packaged food or constituent ingredients in isolation.
This is an excellent question. It’s also a question that’s very difficult for me to answer. All of the different calorie counters out there are slightly different. I’m not saying that fitday, which is the first one I ever used, is any better than the others. But it works just fine for me and I think it’s flexible enough to work for anyone who wants to make it work for them.
I don’t think that fitday is a perfect system for tracking calories. In fact, there’s a lot of room for improvement (searching the database can be a bear). But it does work for me. Just the act of inputting food into the website and watching the list of what I ate that day get longer is enough for me to be mindful of what I’m eating. The actual calorie count that I get from fitday doesn’t really matter. All that matters to me is that I’m close. Losing weight and getting fit slowly is what I’m after. If the weight coming off is delayed by a few days, weeks, or months because I’m off on my calorie count by a bit, I’m OK with that. Fitday helps me to make better eating choices and eat approximately the correct number of calories each day, that’s why I like it.
It sounds like skuud is more of a cook from scratch chef than I am, or at least she cooks things that are more complicated than I do. But I still think that she could make it work for her. Fitday is definitely much easier to use with packaged food because the nutrition information is right there on the box. All you have to do is type in the numbers and you’re good to go. But, it is also very possible to use if you cook from scratch.
But what about inputting foods? Tonight for dinner, I made broiled salmon with a honey ginger glaze, steamed jasmine rice, and corn with butter and salt. When I sat down at the computer, I didn’t add up all of the calories from the ingredients and divide by the number of servings created and then multiply by the number of servings I ate. That IS too complicated. Instead, I “deconstructed” my dinner. I made separate food entries for all of the ingredients in my dinner and then I estimated how much of each of those ingredients I ate based on how much went into the whole meal. I know my calorie count wasn’t perfectly accurate, but it was close enough for me to keep tabs on what I ate. And, since the meal was healthy, I don’t really care how much I ate.
Basically, if counting every calorie that goes into you mouth is very important to you, I think fitday would be a hard (but still possible) site to use. However, I don’t think that any of the other calorie counters out there would be much easier to use. But if you want to get a general idea of how many calories you’re eating, fitday is a fine tool.
update: I recently received another email from skuud. In it, she writes, “Recipezaar allows you to enter recipes and then get the per-serving nutrition facts. You can then fill those in on Fitday. It still takes a bit of effort, but less than the spreadsheet routine.”
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. I’m always amazed and impressed with people who are able to calorie count and keep up with it. I think it takes a certain kind of person. Like, the kind of person who can balance their check book every month! Still, I can see how it helps you as it forces you to think about what you’re eating before you eat it. Like I’ve always said, if it works for you, do it!
- Dave
I think that this is one of the reasons that Weight Watchers has become so wide-spread: they have replaced the calorie counting with a point system based on some factor of calories, fats, & carbs. WW users simply need to count the points, which becomes pretty easy with the Point Counter that you can buy from them
But I have to admit that after looking at my wife’s WW books, the point system makes sense. If you’re allowed, say, 24 points a day, it’s easier to scan your little booklet and add them up: 4 for breakfast (eggs & wheat toast), 2 for my snack (apple & almonds), 6 at lunch (chef salad w/ lite dressing), 3 at mt 2:30 sinker (granola), and 8 for dinner (salmon & wild rice), and I’ve got a point left over. (I made up the numbers for example).
Vegetables don’t count (assuming you don’t use butter, cheese sauce, etc., which is off the list), so it’s easy to guess at your points when it’s not on the chart. Of course, the issue becomes one of portion control, but that’s the same problem anyone has with counting calories.
That said, I still like Fitday – I just have a hard time sticking with it when I have a meal with any more than three ingredients.
my frustration with fitday isn’t with the calorie count (though I didn’t always believe what I totalled — I seemed to be guessing wrong about sizes and ounces etc and ended up with fewer calories than I expected) but with the compositional stuff — you can’t find out how much sugar you are getting, for example, it doesn’t total that; and its hard to track other important nutrients because some labels don’t include some nutrients that you know are in the item. But, I was using the free system, maybe the paid for version would be better…
I use http://www.nutritiondata.com to track my recipes; it’s the most comprehensive recipe tool I’ve found thus far. I think it helps when creating new recipes as it keeps me mindful of what I’m throwing in the pan. CalorieKing.com to track my calories. I liked the interface better than fit day.
Just a note on the Weight Watchers comment-it’s based upon calories, fat and fibre. No carb counting at all. I use WW and we get a small food journal to carry around. Since it fits in my purse, I manage to carry it with me and use it when I need it.
I use livestrong.com. There you have the option to add meals. I simply enter all the ingredients and it figures out the total cal content etc. Then when I want to add it to my day I enter the portion size (like 4 portions for the whole thing = 0.25 of a portion) works for me
I like to count calories for a week here and there, but not every day. That just makes me more generally aware of how many calories I need and approximately how many calories are in foods I eat frequently. Counting every single morsel would burn me out.
You can do recipes in FitDay by using the custom menu, and using the ingredient option. Note that if you want to add an ingredient not listed you can first add that item as a custom, then you can drag it into your recipe as an ingredient. For vacation & ‘lost’ weekends I have a recipe named ‘day off’ that totals up a typical party day so that I can track longer term nutrition.
All that said, a lot of what is in FitDay is not current, as I think the last update (original release) was 2003. A lot is simply not accurate, so nearly everything I log is a custom item.
Also be sure to use ‘raw’ for most items, as FitDay assumes you make everything with margarine and salt, and lots of it. So if you enter ‘green beans’ you will have a far higher value for calories, fat, and sodium than if you enter ‘green beans, raw.
I’m three years into FD, and it has been very helpful, but with no updates it is not something I’d start with now. Also, its nice than you can chart everything, however you can not export or even print the data to share with a nutritionist.
I have been using Fitday for years, and find that it is much more accurate and helpful in keeping track of calories/nutrients due to its’ customizable features. This allows me to alter/input certain foods, and add ingredients, spices to my daily meals that most would not otherwise think of. Nutritional labels often vary by brand, or by Country (the USA for example can change carb counts by subtracting fiber, incorrectly calculating the calories); Fitday allows me to alter this, and enter my food by gram. I have a large database of personally inputted and customized foods, which makes it easy for me to calculate my daily total by incorporating “my customized foods”. My only complaint is that FITDAY no longer allows you to delete items from your daily journal in multiple amounts: you have to click the X separately. You used to be able to check-mark as many foods as you wanted (such as when you are adding foods from ‘my recent foods” etc, you can add more than 1 at a time), and then delete them all at once. Furthermore, Fitday now uses the Nutrition Information from the Official Government site, which is the seminal authority on this. There are so many calorie trackers, and I think that they all have benefits, and the variety are all meant to compliment different people, needs, and preferences to format. I have been using it for so long, that the format is second nature to me, and I navigate it with ease. Compatibility is key when choosing a program to use. Has anyone tried the FITDAY PC upgraded version? It is even more customizable (I’ve been told).
Either way, they’re a great way to keep track of Nutrients, vitamins, minerals and various macro/micro nutrients!