Another Diet Tracking Site

Here's another one: SparkPeople.com.

It's much more complex than FitDay.com, to be sure. Perhaps even too complex. At times the site is so overloaded it's a little hard to navigate.

SparkPeople will give you full-day menus (and even generate the shoppings lists) to help you meet your weight-loss goals. It tracks the calories in and calories burned. You can set all kinds of daily, weekly and monthly goals and have them tracked automatically. The food database is huge -- that makes it easy to input your food diary each day.

The site has a huge library of articles about fitness and nutrition. You can join "teams" and trade messages with other members.

Not a big fan of the report generator. More often than not, it doesn't create the graphs you've requested... just a big, blank space where a graphic should be. And the pages are so overloaded the site is difficult to navigate. (Have I said that already?) The "MySpark" page it creates for you is full of "friends" and "Sparkles" and worthless information. The FitDay pages have your food diary, your activities for the day and a chart of your weight. On Spark, all that information is buried on a secondary page.

I am trying SparkPeople and FitDay side-by-side. Comparing them. Trying to decide which I prefer using.

So far, I'm leaning seriously in the direction of FitDay.

Dieting Disasters... and the Numbers to Prove It

I just love me some Chipotle.  Big fan!  Could eat there every day!

But it's not so good if you're dieting.  Oh, sure.  You can make some good, diet-friendly choices.  But what fun is that?  A big, ol' burrito is like a couple of handsfull of pure happiness!  And, yes, it has to have the sour cream.

And then you have to put it all in your food journal.  Therein lies the really painful part.  Admitting you've just gorged.  Unabashedly.  Unashamedly.

ChipotleFan.com has a very cool nutrition calculator to help you figure out just how far you've blown your calorie count for the day.  It lets you build your own burrito (or bol or salad) and then calculates the damage.

It's fun.  And depressing.  (sigh)

Online Food Diaries & Calorie Counters

My friend, Shaun, found a pretty cool food diary website. We've been using it for a couple of weeks now. And it's free!

FitDay.com tracks your weight, your food, your activities, your nutrition, everything you need to know. Plus, with the "log" feature, you can add notes... to keep track of exercise routines, recipes or just to whinge and moan.

It's pretty easy to use. You can look up hundreds of foods by type... or enter "custom foods" based on the nutrition labels. Even the major fast foods are in the database. Just add the foods to your list each day and it automatically calculates the calories, fat, carbs, protein, etc.

If you don't find the food in the FitDay database, try looking in the CalorieKing database. It's extensive! Just transfer the info into your daily diary as a "custom food."

I really like the weight chart. It shows how you're doing... at a glance. To see the line moving in a (generally) downward angle is very encouraging.

The diary is doing its job. That's for sure. On more than one occasion, I've passed up foods or snacks because I knew I'd have to log it in the diary. And sometimes you just don't want to admit you've eaten some of those horrible things.

http://www.fitday.com/
http://www.calorieking.com/

A Trip to the Islands

Out-of-towners (especially east coasters) are usually surprised to find out that Lake Erie has islands. Islands big enough to support intelligent life. Entire towns. Airports. Schools. Year-round residents.

That's right. The lake is that big. It's a Great Lake. You cannot see the other side. Don't let Tahoe tell you it has a "big" lake. The other shoreline is right there. Not the case with Lake Erie. You can not see Canada from Sandusky (unless you're on top of the 400-foot roller coaster at Cedar Point, then maybe... on a really, really clear day). Most of the world's seas are smaller than this.

The islands are a really fun places to visit. North Bass, Middle Bass, South Bass and Kelley's Islands are the main ones. Ferries leave from Sandusky and Port Clinton on a regular basis in the summer. In the winter, you have to fly. (Unless, when the ice is thick enough, you're brave (or crazy) enough to drive to the mainland. It's been a long time since the lake has frozen deep enough to drive semi trucks back and forth to the islands.) When there are enough kids at the local high school to field a basketball team, they have to fly to their games on the mainland, as long as the weather cooperates.

We made a field trip to South Bass Island in July. Ferry from Catawba. Rent bikes on the island. Make a full day of it. If you want to spend the night, try the B&B's... but reserve early because they sell out quickly in the summer.



The main town on South Bass is Put-In-Bay (pronounced/slurred together as "Puddin' Bay). It's a party town, to say the least. Plenty of bars and restaurants to entertain the tourists. The Heineman's Winery is a pretty good stop on a hot summer day.

The Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial commemorates the Battle of Lake Erie, won by Commodore Olive Perry during the War of 1812. Perry and his ships beat the British near South Bass Island and helped bring the war to a close. Today, there's an enormous tower and a national park on the island.

The Crystal Cave is fun tourist stop. It's actually part of the winery. It's gigantic geode about 30 feet under ground. You climb down the stairs and find yourself in a little room full of crystals. Walls. Ceiling. Everywhere. It's bizarre. And totally natural.

Food Diaries Actually Help!

Great article from Reuters about how keeping a food diary actually helps people loose weight.  Maybe we're on the right track!

Study shows value of food diary in losing weight
By Will Dunham
Reuters
Tue Jul 8, 3:25 AM ET

Keeping a food diary -- a detailed account of what you eat and drink and the calories it packs -- is a powerful tool in helping people lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The study involving 1,685 middle-aged men and women over six months found those who kept such a diary just about every day lost about twice as much weight as those who did not.

The findings buttressed earlier research that endorsed the value of food diaries in helping people lose weight. Companies including Weight Watchers International Inc use food diaries in their weight-loss programs.

The rest of the article is here.

Dropping Some Tonnage... Again

How many times can I go on a diet? How many times do I have to try to shed some pounds before I actually get it done? What will it take to summon the will power to make it happen?

Here we go. I'm trying again.

When I arrived in Columbus six and a half years ago, I weighed 170 pounds. That's almost exactly what I'm supposed to weigh for my height (5'11"). But then I discovered I had moved to a really fun town... and I made some really great friends... and we love to eat and drink. A lot.

It doesn't take long. 170 became 185. Then 190. Then 205.

This morning, it was 221.

I am, officially, a cow.

Clinically obese.

Before I went to New Zealand, I worked out, ate a little better and dropped some tonnage. I was down to 206 the day we left. I've been a moose ever since.

This time I have some help from a friend. We're in it together. We're keeping food journals, writing down every calorie that goes in our mouths. It's kind of sobering to see it in print. Yikes.

We're also going to try using the logs at www.fitday.com. They track your weight, your food/calories, your activities, etc. The hardest part will be just keeping up with the entries. But the reports seem pretty good.

Wish us luck!