I just wondered how you guys track calories (if you do this at all) - I have a love/hate relationship with apps such as MyFitnessPal, which is to say, I hate using them!
I’d just be interested to hear your experiences. I’m slowly getting started using Huel and I’d likely be having it as a substitute for my usual breakfast and lunch, then having regular food for dinner.
Do you use a notepad to keep track of what you are doing? An app? Keep a mental note in your head? Please share your pro tips with me.
I use MyFitnessPal and love it. I use it on my laptop, not mobile phone, and find it really easy to keep track of everything I eat/drink. The food database is excellent. I only use the free version so just for food intake and not exercise. To count steps I carry a 3D TriSport pedometer.
In my head. I did start off using my fitness pal but realised I didn’t really need it. After about a month of working out how many calories are in what foods you can keep a track of what you have eaten it in your head.
I wore a Fitbit for a while. I really hate wearing it (don’t like watches), but it was useful in that I now know that on a completely sedentary day I burn 1300 calories, on a day when I’m active (walking, cleaning, maybe a short bike ride to the shops) I burn on average 1700 calories, and on days when I exercise at the gym AND I’m active I burn 2000-2300.
I no longer need to wear the Fitbit now I know roughly what I am burning each day. Obviously if you want it to be really accurate you’d need to wear it every day!
It takes the effort out of having to calculate everything.
I hate having to calculate my calories in and calories out. Really hate it.
Probably explains why I have been unable to lose any weight at all in over a year!!
But, if you dont mind wearing a watch, and are more motivated than me about tracking your food, a Fitbit or similar would work pretty well.
On that note, if you wanna buy mine, it’s sitting in the drawer looking like new…
Haha I’m quite good at tracking calories burned. I really love my Apple Watch, use it to track swimming and other cardio I do.
I think I might just jot down calories consumed on a notepad for a while until I can easily just do the sums in my head. I don’t know what it is about MFP, but I never seem to stick with it for long!
I have only been using mfp for the last couple of months but actually enjoy doing my daily food journal. Viewing my weight loss as a graph (yes I’m a weirdo who weighs daily whilst dieting) I find interesting and encouraging
You could try the Fitbit app. It’s really good as a food diary. I use it even tho I don’t wear my Fitbit to track calories burned!!
Is the Apple Watch comfortable to wear?
I found the Fitbit really bulky and uncomfortable.
I’ve been tempted by an Apple Watch for ages but am worried I will wear it for a month then put it in the drawer with thr Fitbit!!!
But yeah I’d recommend trying the Fitbit app for food diary. You can always delete it again if you don’t like it. It’s free. Once you have your regular diet in there it’s pretty quick and easy to use
I use the “Lose it!” app on the appstore. It’s a free app that makes it super easy to add breakfast, lunch and dinner with any snacks - it has a barcode scanner for other food items and all the huels are already in the database.
It will keep a track of calories and graph it along with your weight, you can set goals for weightloss and it will tell you how many calories you should deficit per day and recommend how many per meal.
To track my calorie burns I have an apple watch, but honestly don’t really use it that much.
That’s exactly the problem I had with the Fitbit - it was so bulky and dug into my wrist. Didn’t like it at all. I’m tempted by an Apple… especially if it’s more comfortable
