Work with others in your weight loss journey

EASILY ENTERING FOODS INTO A DATABASE

No food diary has all of the foods you want in its database.You’ll invariably eat a food that isn’t there. Often, it’s better to simply add the food anyway because generic versions of the food might not be accurate. For example, DietPower lists one ounce of low-fat cheddar cheese at 49 calories, quite a bit less than the typical low-fat cheddars that I’ve seen, which have 80 calories per ounce.

To easily enter a food, get the Nutrition Facts label from the package, or if you ate at a restaurant, go to the company’s Web site and get the data there.

Sometimes, you’ll have a hard time finding the Nutrition Facts information. For example, in many of the food databases I’ve used, ethnic foods, such as California rolls or pad thai, are very hard to find. When I get into that situation, I break the foods down into ingredients (nori, rice, avocado, and crab, in the case of California rolls) and make a rough estimate. Of course, it’s better to know the amount of calories you’re eating before you do it, so try to input this information in advance.

The Nutrition Facts label provides at-a-glance information about the foods that you might be considering purchasing in the grocery store. The values are based on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet. Of course, the label isn’t worth anything unless you understand what you’re reading. Here’s a quick look at each individual component:

Serving size. This is the size of what the manufacturer considers a serving. Always view this dubiously and read the label carefully. A can of soda, for example, usually has two servings in it.

Servings per container. This is a key measure. A bag of tortilla chips that you think is single serving can have five or six servings in it. Eating the whole bag can set you back 700 or more calories for the day. Note that the rest of the label is based on one serving. So if you eat two servings, double the data (calories, fat, vitamins, and so on) so you get a clear picture of what you’ve actually consumed.

Calories and calories from fat. Calories are roughly calculated by multiplying the grams of protein and carbohydrates by four and the grams of fat by nine. That’s because there are nine calories per gram of fat, but only four calories per gram of carbohydrate and protein. The USDA recommends that you get only 30% of your calories from fat, so a product is not necessarily a good choice because 44% of its calories are from fat. As part of a meal, however, it might be a good choice, if you balance it with lots of vegetables and other low-fat foods.

Total fat, saturated fat, and trans-fat. In this example, total fat is 12 grams, with three of those coming from saturated fat and 1.5 coming from the dreaded trans-fats. Note that the 12 grams of fat is 18% of the total value recommended by the USDA for someone on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet.

Other values. The label breaks down the amount of cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fiber, sugars, and protein in the food, along with a reading of what percentage each is of the daily value.

Vitamins and minerals. The label shows the percentage of the daily value for four important vitamins and minerals vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. Some labels show information for other vitamins and minerals as well.

Footnote. If there is room on the package, the label includes a footnote section that explains that the percentage of daily value is based on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet. It also includes recommendations for a 2,500-calorie-per-day diet. The USDA says that any percent of daily value less than 5% is low and anything greater than 20% is high. This is why serving size is so important. If you eat three servings of a food that has 400 mg of sodium per serving, the product is not 16.67% of your daily value, as it would be for one serving it is 50%. Note also that no matter the calories, the recommended intake of cholesterol and sodium remain constant.

Entering Data

Many of the weight loosing weight loosing programs discussed in this article allow you to use more than one device to enter food information. That’s good, because you don’t eat all your meals in one place. Being able to use a PDA or the Web to enter data is very important. Many weight loosing weight loosing programs also let you enter data on your PC at work, copy the files to a disk, and then copy them on your computer at home, so that you have all food information in one place. NutriBase and Diet & Exercise Assistant let you enter data into your PDA, and then copy that data to your PC. If you have a PDA that is Web-enabled, weight loosing weight loosing programs such as eDiets, FitDay, CalorieKing, and others will work for you.

Nutrients and Water

A good food diary should track at least the number of nutrients that are on the Nutrition Facts label. All of the weight loosing programs mentioned in this article do that. However, if you are on a cholesterol-, carbohydrate-, or sodium-reduced diet, make sure the weight loosing program you’re considering allows you to change the thresholds for these items accordingly. Or you might care about a particular mineral, such as zinc. Make sure the weight loosing program you’re considering tracks this for you. There is also a potential for overkill in this area. Do you really need to know how much you are getting of more than 100 nutrients?

Exercise Database

In losing weight, exercise is just as important as diet. In general, the more you exercise, the easier it is to lose weight. However, if your weight loss and diet software weight loosing program doesn’t know running from walking or swimming from sailing, you’re not going to know how many calories you’ve expended. Most food diaries don’t do a good job in this category. Because they were designed by dieticians, they concentrate on food, and exercise is almost an afterthought.

weight loosing programs are getting better, but they aren’t there yet. For example, they might allow you to say that you’ve walked at a moderate pace for a certain period of time, but they don’t let you enter the exact amount of time you exercised and how fast you went. Also, most food diaries don’t have a category for use of an elliptical trainer, which is one of the most popular pieces of exercise equipment, but which is relatively new.

Reports and Graphs

Reports and graphs are very important to any diet plan because they provide feedback about how well you’re doing in your quest to lose weight. Most weight loosing programs have a large number of reports, many of which you’ll never use. However, there are a few key reports and graphs that you’ll want to look at when you’re using a food diary.

Weight lost over time. You’ll love this one, particularly as you lose weight in the beginning.
Percentage of calories from fat, carbs, and protein. A pie chart does nicely for this, and it’s an eye-opening experience when you think that you’re eating a low-fat diet and you discover that 45% of your calories come from fat. (Remember, fat is nine calories per gram, while carbs and protein are four.)
Calories eaten per day. This is a nice chart that shows you your calories per day over a set amount of days.
Exercise log. This provides feedback about how much and what kinds of exercises you do.
Goals achieved. Many weight loosing programs have a goal-setting feature, and then give you reports to show the goals that you have achieved. This is important because reaching goals helps you stay motivated.

Although these reports are the basics, many food diaries provide a wide variety of additional reports that add power and flexibility to your analysis. DietPower lets you graph your intake of any one of 35 nutrients so, for example, you can see how much calcium you ate over the last few weeks. NutriBase lets you analyze your meals or snacks one at a time so you can analyze whether what you’ve eaten for breakfast over the past month has been healthy, for example.

Number of People per Copy

When you start a diet, you become the Pied Piper of your household. Once you start losing weight, others in the family will follow your motivational lead and will want to lose weight also. Or, you could just make your diet a family affair and get everyone to join in from the start. In any case, make sure the weight loss and diet software you buy can accommodate as many people as there are in your family who want to lose weight.

Support

Is there a well-traveled online forum for your weight loss and diet software? Chat rooms? A resource library? A store? Online experts? Events? Mentors? Many of these weight loosing programs have all that and more, allowing you to share your experiences and work with others in your weight loss journey. Weight Watchers, of course, has a great community of users; support has been the key ingredient in Weight Watchers for decades, both online and off. eDiets makes support a key part of its process as well. And other weight loosing programs, such as SparkPeople, offer excellent online support.