food log

[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).

[Nanci]

Well, Diet Diary just has skating, skiing or snowshoeing. I think, though, if you can find the calories burned for your activity _anywhere_, you can then make a custom exercise with that rate.

Who knows how accurate any of that is, anyway. That's why I err on the side of eating less, and not adding in more calories for what I burn.

Give yourself another 20 years and see how much fun snow really is!!

Nanci

[RedCanny]

Ok, so I've signed up with Calorie King. It tells me that I should only have 1300 calories per day, given that I want to lose just 4 lbs. This does not bode well for my trust in this product... can any of you provide any insight? Every other source I've used has advised 2000/day for me, to lose weight... and for the most part that has worked. ???

[Dianyla]

Ok, so I've signed up with Calorie King. It tells me that I should only have 1300 calories per day, given that I want to lose just 4 lbs. This does not bode well for my trust in this product... can any of you provide any insight? Every other source I've used has advised 2000/day for me, to lose weight... and for the most part that has worked. ???

Is that 1300 net calories (e.g. eat 2000 but burn 700 with exercise)? Do you know what your daily "sit around and do nothing maintaining weight" caloric needs are? It depends on your body weight and default activity level. For example, I weigh 155 lbs and am an office worker and I maintain weight on 1500 calories a day. To lose weight I have to drop lower. However, I also have to eat enough to fuel any exercise that I do. So if I want to maintain, and I go on a ride one day that burns ~700 calories, I eat 2200 that day.

Also, you can go into your profile and override CK's default "suggestions" and enter your own preferences with regards to daily caloric intake, ratio of protein/carbs/fat, etc.

[RedCanny]

Yeah, I think it is net calories. 1300 just seems ridiculously low, for me. On days when I have accidentally dipped below 1700 (gross), I tended to gain a pound or two. (body was going into starvation mode, probably...)

Perhaps I just need to work on my math.

This is probably just part of my adjustment from FitDay, which does things a little differently. For the most part, I am finding Calorie King to be much more user-friendly. Thanks, all, for the help & suggestions!

I will be back on outdoor bike soon, yay! The icebergs out there are melting.

[awm03]

DietPower ($50) is also terrific for tracking calories. It's simple to use, customizable, and can even break down recipes to figure out calories per serving. It's geared toward people trying to lose weight (I've lost 27 pounds), but is excellent for weight maintenance too.