I recently turned 50 and hit the realization that many of our participants realize… my metabolism is not what it used to be. For much of my adult life, I have been able to eat mainly healthy foods without paying close attention to my portions. I could eat some chocolate every day without having to worry about weight gain. And if my weight did go up, a few days of paying close attention would help things normalize. I have come to realize that I can no longer eat the portion sizes that I used to eat and need to eat more mindfully by making my meals last ~20 minutes. Additionally, I need to pay closer attention to how hungry and how full I am, trying to only eat at a 2-3 on the hunger and satiety scale and stopping at a 5-6. Where have I heard these strategies before? 🙂
Alas, I heeded my own advice that I give to my participants when asked what they should do when their weight is plateauing or they begin gaining and they don’t know why…I started tracking! Honestly, I have not consistently tracked my food intake in close to 10 years, perhaps longer. And ironically, to find the best tracking app, I went back and reviewed my own blog written in 2021 titled, Tracking Still Works, where I reviewed several different tracking apps. I chose MyNetDiary, the one with the green apple and tape measure around it. Formerly, I used MyFitnessPal with great success; however, participants shared that many of the previously free features were now only available in the premium version.
Here are my 10 Tracking Take-aways:
- The set-up was amazingly easy. I simply entered my sex, current weight, activity level and weight goals. This provided me with my calorie goal for the day, which I could select if this was adjusted when I exercised and burned calories or not. I like having the calories ‘deposited’ back into my account, so I selected this option.
- The food database is expansive and the units are very reasonable. I am able to easily find the foods that I typically eat in the database and if not, there is something similar. In the past, I found it difficult to be able to log in units that made sense for the food consumed. For example, if I eat a peach, I can just choose the size of the peach consumed, I do not have to guess the number of ounces. If I cut up my peach, I can choose how much I consumed in cups (or fractions thereof). If I wanted to use a food scale, I could enter grams or ounces.
- The scanning feature is free. For packaged foods, I can scan the barcode and the nutrition information is instantly accessible. I then just enter the quantity consumed. This feature has become a premium (paid) feature on MyFitnessPal.
- My usual foods and exercises are saved. Since I often eat leftovers for lunch and/or dinner, I typically eat the same foods for several days in a row. The app makes it very easy to just copy these same foods for subsequent days. Similarly, I tend to be active in the same way on most days and the app makes it very easy to pull up these same exercises, while still changing the duration or rate of intensity.
- Reminders can be set up. I find that it helps me to set text notifications to be reminded to log my meals and snacks at the times when I typically eat them. These can be turned off at any time.
- Daily analysis is available. Daily feedback about how I am working toward my weight loss or weight management goal, calories burned through exercise, fiber intake (including the food sources that day), healthy and unhealthy fat intake (including the foods that I ate containing these) and sodium intake (including the foods that I ate with
high amounts) is provided. This is helpful to see what areas I need to work on or which substitutions I could be making. - I am motivated to move more if I want an extra treat. I was very surprised at how motivated I am to stay within my calorie goal for the day. If I want an extra treat or my chocolate and there are not enough calories left for the day, I try to add some extra minutes to my exercise to account for this.
- Tracking has made me more mindful of my portion sizes. I now have a visual cue of how many calories I have remaining for the day, and therefore, I am more mindful of measuring my portions so that I can more accurately account for what I am eating.
- Tracking has encouraged me to slow down and enjoy my food. As a natural consequence of tracking, my portion sizes have decreased to keep within my calorie budget. Because I want to enjoy my smaller amounts of food a little longer, I have tried to slow down and really taste what I am eating.
- Tracking is much easier than I thought. I have to say that tracking is way easier than I thought it would be and I owe this greatly to the ease of the MyNetDiary app. The developers have done their homework to make the task of tracking as painless as possible, and even somewhat enjoyable.
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