This post is all about the tools that I use to keep me on track and motivated. In my previous post I listed many of my favorite references. Here I'll detail my tools like I mentioned in my first post.
My food journal I have come accustomed to using is the MyFitnessPal (MFP) app and website, I've used it now for 6 months and love it. I was never much to count calories or even carbohydrates during my first go around with low carb, I just tried to keep the carbs to a minimum and did ok. This app, which I use on my tablet 95% of the time, keeps me motivated and mostly helps me to realize whether I am actually hungry or do I just want to eat. As I have stated, I do truly believe in food addiction and logging helps me to keep myself focused. I have never been the person who can skip a meal. I always made sure I ate with the clock and not with my stomach. You can probably imagine that hunger is something I wasn't really familiar with. I often rode the insulin wave and developed a carb addiction along with it. I got sidetracked a bit there, back to the app! When initially setting up the app or website you input your body statistics, current weight, and weightloss goal, and it formulates a goal for calories and nutrients from that data. The really nice feature is that you can tweak these goals to your liking: i.e., more fat, less carbs, less calories, more calories, even down to macronutrients and percentages of which fats you intake if you want to get that deep into it.
It's got a reports tab where you can track your weight, measurements, calories, calories burned and a number of other items. And it will give you graphs and charts to correspond with each category, and if you like data like I like data it's a pretty sweet setup.
There is a barcode scanner feature built into the app so you can quickly scan a food item and add it into your log. It has a huge database of items and I believe I have yet to not be able to find an item listed. The only problem I see with the database is that it is so extensive there are often times many different items to choose from and you have to double check each one to make sure it's the right one to put on your log, it would be nice to see them consolidate the list a bit for this purpose.
There are numerous other features and I use many of them, but don't want to go into detail about them here.
The other tool I use is my Fitbit Tracker. It's essentially a pedometer that links with the computer and gives you more data to look at. And it syncs with MFP and automatically adjusts calorie intake according to your exercise for the day. So the two programs work interchangeably to give me data in both my activity and my food consumption. Fitbit does have a food log, but I was already established on MFP and didn't want to switch over. The biggest advantage for me having the Fitbit was to confirm that I get a ton of exercise at work and don't essentially need to exercise to lose weight (referenced in Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat). As I always hit my 10k steps on the days I work, often getting over 15k for the day which amounts to over 5 miles a day and close to 10 on really busy days.
With these two tools along with the internet and YouTube I have been able to stay focused and informed in my LCHF journey. Hopefully they can help you too!
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