Best Food Tracker Apps?

[Katie 16]

I wanted to start tracking everything...any apps that anyone would reccomend?

[jennamommy 80]

My fitness pal:-) love it

[Katie 16]

Is it fairly easy? I'm a little slow, so easier the better lol

[L Belle 96]

I love the MyFitnessPal. It's easy to use in my opinion. It has most foods nutritional value already in it, so you can just enter a brand or type of food and it gives the information. Plus it will store past foods you've entered and you can just go to the list and add it to your daily intake. My Surgeon, Nutritionist and Dietician all recommend it.

[Katie 16]

Awesome! Thanks!!

[L Belle 96]

Hey, anytime. Another good thing, you can set a special password on your account, and when you visit your dietician/nutritionist, they can log on and view your log and help you with anything or make suggestions.

[Quilting Girl 8]

Has anyone got the Fitbit to go with My Fitness Pal? If yes, does it work good?

[Katie 16]

Hey' date=' anytime. Another good thing, you can set a special password on your account, and when you visit your dietician/nutritionist, they can log on and view your log and help you with anything or make suggestions.[/quote']

I just downloaded it this morning, logged my Breakfast and everything. Very cool! does anyone know how many calories we should have per meal?

[L Belle 96]

I just downloaded it this morning, logged my Breakfast and everything. Very cool! does anyone know how many calories we should have per meal?

Not sure about per meal, I am pre-op and currently on a 1500 per day program. I was advised to eat more for breakfast and lunch to get you through the day, and less at dinner.

[jennamommy 80]

I think that is something you should ask a professional. How many have you been taking in?

[DLCoggin 1,788]

Good morning Ms. Katie! Calories per meal is probably not as important as your daily calorie total. And that probably is not as important as your average daily calorie total over a 30 day period of time. It's almost impossible to put a firm number on any of those because there are so many individual variables - metabolism, activity level, Water consumption and the amount of Protein you're eating all play a role. I lost 120 pounds over nine months averaging just under 1300 calories a day. About six weeks ago, my surgeon advised me to increase my calorie intake to 1800 a day. Concerned that 1800 might be a little too much, I've been trying to increase my intake to 1500. Average intake for the last six weeks has been 1421 - incredible as it sounds, it's harder than I expected to eat more! Lol!

All of those numbers come directly from my food diary app that I've been using, every single day, since Dec. 7th of last year. You might want to consider starting your log by entering your current weight and then just eating what you would normally eat for a week and entering the numbers for every meal. Weigh again after a week. If your weight is unchanged or you gained a little, look at your average daily calorie intake for the week and then set a goal of 100 calories per day less. Try that for a week and make adjustments as necessary.

You will probably find that entering everything you eat into your app is a little tedious in the beginning. Stick with it! The longer you use it, the easier it becomes because you build up your personal "database" of things you've eaten in the past and you can add those to any given day in a snap. Research has repeatedly shown that folks that maintain a food log lose more weight, lose it more quickly, and are more successful at maintaining the weight loss. It is an incredibly powerful tool that takes all of the guess work out of the equation. You're gonna love it!!

[Ellie_Grace 271]

Another good thing is that you can connect with friends to support you and help keep you honest... I have many of the people on this forum as my friend on there and it has been nothing but awesome. If you want to add any of us let us know. My email for the add (go under friends and click on request) is odiemom@ymail.com.

Now as for the amount of calories per meal... that varies with each person, their weight and their goal and where they are post-op. I personally eat 3 meals and 2 Snacks a day and try to eat about 700-900 a day. I split that up between the meals depending on what I am eating throughout the day. But I figure out my day's food intake in the morning, inputing my Breakfast lunch and dinner then determine the right Snacks to supplement Protein, Vitamins and calorie goals. I do not change how much I eat if I exercise either, because sometimes I burn off exercising more than I eat, but I do not allow that to give me permission to eat more. You might want to ask your doctor what he requires as far as calories, but I know in the beginning I could barely eat 400 cal but then I stalled and forced myself to increase it to 700 to avoid starvation mode (at the advice of others in here) and it worked. Anyway, what this was all meant to say, since I am way too wordy sorry, is this is determined on an individual basis based on a lot of factors, so good luck. )

[DLCoggin 1,788]

I do not change how much I eat if I exercise either, because sometimes I burn off exercising more than I eat, but I do not allow that to give me permission to eat more.

I do exactly the same thing. My app allows me to enter my exercise and it then calculates the number of calories burned based on what the exercise was and the intensity level. More importantly, there is a setting which allows me to have the app deduct the burned calories from my daily total, or to just ignore the burned calories. I prefer to ignore the calories burned for the same reason as odiemom, I don't want it to become an excuse to eat more.

[PaulB 346]

DL you are my mentor and hero. Do you work in the medical field or do you just read a lot about WLS . You have got to be one of the most knowledgable persons on this Fourm and have given out some outstanding advise. My wife and I have tryed to read everything we could on the subject and now Becuse of our daughter in college studing nutrition/ culinary has got us reading up on nutrition.

Please don't stop posting and sharing your wisdom with us

You are helping .

THANKS

Surgery Anniversary 7/30/12

[DLCoggin 1,788]

Thanks so much for the kind words Paul! I have no medical experience at all. Although I am grateful for your trust, I'm no hero - just a guy that lived with obesity for a very long time and finally decided to do something about it. I have done, and continue to do, a fair amount of research. Mostly motivated by my belief that bariatric surgery is a life-changing, and in some cases a life-saving procedure. Many folks don't have the time to do the research themselves but still need honest and objective answers to their questions. I enjoy sharing my experience and the things that I have learned along the way from researching my own questions as well as others that come up on the forum. I'm certainly not unique. There are many very knowledgeable folks on this forum. We're all fortunate to have such an amazing resource!!