food log

[Dianyla]

I use the Calorie King software on my Palm. I love it! I had a problem Saturday, though, making it believe I could ride a bike for 16 hours, burning 10,000-some calories. It counts them, but just says ERR. I took in about 4000.

Goodness, I can't say I've ever had that problem! I use the web version because I don't have a handheld and that way I can access it from any internet connection and update it. Could you maybe just enter in two 5,000 calorie events? Or is it a daily max total that you're hitting.

Boy, I'd love to see what the staff there think of that bug report.

[crazycanuck]

I think i'm going to ingest what you ladies have said & go back to square one..
I have nanci clark's book & will sit down & re read it....

Will let you know more a bit later..

Thanks
C

[RedCanny]

Good luck! As I've been trying to lose a total of 20 lbs over several months, this calorie counting business has been a real eye-opener; I'm still trying to figure out what is a good deficit for actual weight loss for me. 500/day may indeed be a magic number: there have been weeks were I had too much of a deficit, and lo and behold, I plateau'ed, if not gained a few back.

One question I have for the CalorieKing users... have you compared it much to FitDay (I use that one)? I'm curious to know if it seems more accurate with foods or activity calorie counts, if it is easier or more fun to use, or ...?

[han-grrl]

MOST people who exercise don't eat enough to support their exercise habits...

for weight loss, you dont' want the difference between calories out/in to be too huge, other wise your body won't want to give up what it has since it thinks the body is under some weird stress.

when you start keeping track of your eating habits, you start to realize how FEW calories certain things have (like salads)...

[RedCanny]

when you start keeping track of your eating habits, you start to realize how FEW calories certain things have (like salads)...

Yes! Last night I was scrambling to find another 400 calories. It was hard, esp. as I would've been better off eating them earlier in the day.

[Nanci]

Hey, you're from my home town!! Born in St. Paul, raised in Roseville, lived in St. Paul, Maplewood and Stillwater until I bailed out to Florida when I was 39...

I am not familiar with FitDay. I have used Calorie King Diet Diary since last July. What I like about it is it has a good database- lots of restaurants, pretty much every type of food I eat, plus the ability to save my own foods if they are not in the database, plus the ability to save groups of foods I commonly eat, for example, bun, turkey burger, slice of swiss cheese. I keep it on my Palm (there is a desktop version, too) so I have it with me everywhere. I have not missed counting a single day, meal, snack, exercise since I started in July- so it must be easy to use and semi-entertaining/not annoying.

Since July I have lost about 30#, going by the recommended amount of calories suggested by Diet Diary, based on height/weight and activity level, and whether I wanted to gain, lose or stay the same. To help it along, I round down the recommended amount. If I do a short ride, I don't replace those calories, but on longer rides I replace about a quarter to half of what I burn.

Works for me!

But, works much better with daily cycling, not weekends only.

Nanci

[RedCanny]

Well then, I may give CK a try; there appears to be a free 7-day trial anyway. Thanks for the input!

I've had pretty good luck with Fitday- most of the stuff I eat is in there, and what isn't, I just add myself as a custom food, as most of the power-bars I eat have labels, and most of the cooking I do at home is from Cooking Light magazine, which offers nutritional data on all recipes. However, I have noticed that FitDay's estimation of calories burned in various activities, is quite different from what I read in different sources (or is not there at all. Snowboarding cal/hour, anyone?).

Cheers, and happy trails, all!

39 years in St. Paul, eh Nanci? I hope to move back out to the NW sometime with hubby, but I've been here almost 20 years, now! MN is a great place to live (I love snow).

[Dianyla]

One question I have for the CalorieKing users... have you compared it much to FitDay (I use that one)? I'm curious to know if it seems more accurate with foods or activity calorie counts, if it is easier or more fun to use, or ...?

Well, I may not be the best example but I tried to use FitDay for about... 2 days! Got sick of it and went back to CK. I had already been using the free database on Calorie King to look up data for my own manual calorie tracking for years. You can look things up for free, and I found the contents of their database to be more complete and up to date. At the time when I tried it (~1 year ago) FitDay seemed to have mostly generic food items. CalorieKing has generic items but it also has a wide range of packaged store-bought foods as well as restaurant and fast-food stuff.

I use the web version, btw.