Fitness Pal

Many times when I find myself on Pinterest looking up healthy recipes or new workouts, I see a lot of advice about keeping a food journal.

Now, there is nothing wrong with not having one, but if you are like me and sometimes eat whatever you want without thinking about it- a food journal is for you.



I've seen many people use notebooks that they carry around, or use different apps such as "My Fitness Pal" or "Lose It."  Personally, I use My Fitness Pal and love it!

Along with that I also made a weight-loss chart. Every time a pound is lost, I "X" out the number. I put it on the inside of my closet to remind me every day when I am getting dressed what my goals are.

On My Fitness Pal you can log your meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks) and water intake. You can also set your current and goal weight. It will remind you every week or so to update your weight and step on the scale, which also helps keep you on track on the progress you've made. It also gives you your calorie goal intake for the day. Mine is currently set at 1,240, but you can modify it to how active or non-active you are and it will help give you an estimate of how many calories you should have a day.

Along with all of this to keep you on track, you can add friends and see their food diary for the day, and if they worked out/how many calories they burned/what they did. Kind of like statuses you can "like" or "comment" and say "good job!" to support each other.

My Fitness Pal also has a blog with recipes on the home page. These are the main parts of My Fitness Pal that I use- but wait there's more! Under the "More" section there you can find your Profile, Meals/Recipes/Foods, Nutrition (how many carbohydrates, protein, fats your taking in), Steps, and other important things.

So far I've lost 25 pounds with the help of this app. If you have your own way of losing weight that differs from any of the few I listed I would be glad to hear them.