Food Diaries

[willsie01]

In trying to learn about healthy eating I'm doing a free OpenLearn course on Nutrition & Wellbeing, online with Aberdeen University. In the course there's a part about trying Food Diaries and they mention MyFitnessPal, LoseIt!, MyNetDiary, MyPlate. This ties in with me wanting to monitor particularly the amount of protein and saturated fat I have in my diet, so I'm trying MyFitnessPal at the moment. I have a problem with what appears to be wildly inaccurate readings sometimes for some foods. Ridiculous protein figures for example. Does anyone have any good experiences of using these apps?

[Hidden]

I did that course with the university of Aberdeen as well about nutrition and I really enjoyed it.

No I don't like the apps as I am from the old school and do things the traditional way like pen and paper.

[Hidden]

I've never done a course like that but it does sound very interesting. I'm following a Low Fodmap diet for IBS and I keep a food diary every day and like Hidden use pen and paper i.e. I'm using an A4 page to view diary to keep my food diary and it works really well. I type up on the computer everything I've written down and save it, this is what I will take to the Dietician when I see her later this month.

All the very best with the course, sounds really interesting to me.

[willsie01 in reply to Hidden]

Oh dear, I don’t do pen and paper ☹️I’d never know where I’d left it.

[Hidden in reply to willsie01]

Ah the secret to that is keep it in the same place;). I keep my diary and pen in exactly the same place in the kitchen all the time unless I take it upstairs to type up my diary. The diary is A4 in size so quite difficult to lose.

All the best with the course.

[SenateurDupont]

I used My fitness pal years ago. I did liked it to keep track of my food intake. I downloaded it with the idea of loosing some weight. And I did! However, I think you can develop a kind of "perversity" with the app. You want to acheive your goal so much that sometimes you wanna go too fast... well I was proud with all the weight I lost with it... however, I lost it too fast... So i think it can be dangerous going in this process alone.

[Zest]

Hi willsie01

I used to use MyFitnessPal in the past, which seemed ok for my needs at the time. Good luck with your course - it sounds interesting.

Zest

[Fran182716 Prediabetic]

I have used MFP briefly, a general criticism of it seems to be that a lot of the food entries are user supplied so will be random people’s estimates.

Theres another site called Fat Secret which I have only used the free version to look up calorie and fibre counts as they seem to use USA national food database values which are likely to be more accurate.

Other than that I just use google and take an average from a few different sites, write that down and stick with it when I use the same food again.

My food diary is a paper diary, I bought an expensive pretty purple one with an owl on to encourage me to use it every day!

[Hidden]

I've been a member of MyFitnessPal for 8 years. There are some database entries that are wrong, you have to double check, I've never not found a correct entry. You can create your own entries as well.

Ive used Cronometer app, when wanting to look at micro nutrient data on my food choices, that app is terrible. The other ones I dont know about, I've been quite happy with logging my food in MFO, even after weight loss I still log out of habit, plus the community there is pretty amazing.

[willsie01 in reply to Hidden]

"I've never not found a correct entry" Inexplicably the app sets a daily protein level of 115g for me I'm using the free version. I'm guessing to fix this I'll need to subscribe.

[Hidden in reply to willsie01]

No, the app sets values by default and you can manually change them, but it’s percent only. If you want to change by grams that is through paid membership.

I tried the free trial for 30 days, it wasn’t worth it, so I canceled and use the same free version I have been using all this time.

Note...mfp has a community. A large one and super helpful. There are stickies at the beginning of each forum, tons of how tos and answers for many questions you might have. Also create threads of your own like this app does and ask questions that way.

[willsie01 in reply to Hidden]

Okeydokey, I'll look up the community. Following your info I did rebalance the protein to a more realistic level but it does it at the expense of making either the carb or fat content too high. It only accepts Fat, Carbs & Protein adding up to 100%. Either I'm working with incorrect guidance on what the daily intake of these should be or something is missing that needs to be factored in.

[Hidden in reply to willsie01]

The macros are for 100%. You cannot eat 110% macros or your calories for the day would not come out right. It is split for carbs, fat and protien. If your doing Low carb high fat, you might want to try the free trial so you can do grams. The best app for low carb high fat I know of is Cronometer, but I cannot stand their diary layout and food database is lacking entirely in many foods i eat generally.

The app is very straightforward. I think you may be overthinking it, but if setting lchf I can see why you maybe having some issues.

[willsie01 in reply to Hidden]

"You cannot eat 110%" Clearly...

The app is less useful to me if the 3 variables cannot be balanced in a way that I can reconcile with NHS nutritional guidance on reference values, which I am following.

[Hidden in reply to willsie01]

I understand. Then I would try a different app. Sorry I’m not more help.

[willsie01 in reply to Hidden]

Au contraire...you have been very helpful with the info on how to adjust the nutrition and point me in the direction of the community.

Your input much appreciated.

[ItsTimeTo]

That sounds an interesting course to do. I have used MFP in the past and would use it again, it does the job. I have just started using nutra check calorie counter and I love it. So easy to use, a scanner for food packages and all food that you find in the shops at your finger tips. Unfortunately it's not free, though not very expensive. It has a 7 day free trial which I'm using at the moment then you either pay or go to the lite version. I'm not sure how different the lite version is as yet. Good luck with your course.

[willsie01 in reply to ItsTimeTo]

"That sounds an interesting course to do" There have been a few similar comments so to give some context: the course is free, short (4 weeks) and is studied online and time commitment is not great. Not that I'm trying to promote it but if anyone is interested: futurelearn.com/courses/nut....

[Lesley1234567]

I use pen and paper and google or read the nutrition info on the package, and work out what I want from it. I also then keep a list of the regular foods I eat so I don't have to keep googling, my memory is shocking 😂😂

I do LCHF and at the moment I’m tracking protein, fat, carbohydrates and calories. Before I just kept track of carbohydrates and calories.

Although I have been following LCHF for two years I have never tracked all these ‘markers’ .

I find looking at nutrition quite interesting, but I now need to find out for sure how much protein, fat I actually should be eating.

[willsie01 in reply to Lesley1234567]

I'm focusing on having 5 a day and protein as they are the particular things that I've not monitored enough. I'm learning to use the Eatwell Guide promoted by the NHS. I'm guessing your LCHF diet might conflict with that a bit? An unexpected benefit of eating 5 a day is that I just don't have room to eat those things that were adding weight. After an adult lifetime of having to yoyo diet it now appears I don't have to worry about it anymore. Only a short period of 6 months or so but my weight has never been so stable, without the need to constantly be cutting back. But it's been too short a period of time to jump to any conclusions.

Edit: wrt LCHF I just noticed that the recommended daily reference values for our daily diet in the U.K. is fat =< 35%, carbs =50%. What does LCHF say?

[Carowood]

I used to use MFP but have changed to Nutracheck calorie counter as I find it easier to use and see the nutrients etc plus I find it more UK friendly in that it has foods from UK suppliers/supermarkets.