Thursday, August 14, 2008

online calorie diaries, part I, MyFoodDiary

Yes, well, it's back to the old diet. Time to give up on the idea that chocolate is a major food group and start trying to get veggies into the lineup. I've had really good results in the past with online food diaries -- one enters the food, they tell you the calories and at the end of the day give you some idea if you are ahead or behind calorie-wise. I should note that each of these sites has discussion boards and "weight loss groups" -- I'm an Internet loner so I don't use these. But as long as I have to do it, why not try different food diaries? One a month? OK, July is MyFoodDiary.

The Facts:

I used MyFoodDiary for 5 (non-consecutive) months (I paid for it for a year) It is $9/month = $108 per year.

Strong points. MyFoodDiary has a lovely clean layout. If you've worked with a free food diary that makes it's income from advertising, you've experienced clutter. Stuff irrelevant (to your diet) pops up to grab your attention. MyFoodDiary is like the Google search page -- uncluttered, with the most important stuff front and center. You choose the foods by entering search terms and then choosing from the list that results. Make a mini-list of exercises, then choose from them to keep track of what you burned. Two clock-like counters focus on the big picture -- how many days in that last week did you exercise? How many days in the last month? -- reminding us dieters that it's not how we screwed up today, it's how we get back on the wagon.

The status page reports on the overall health of breakfast lunch and dinner (with snacks in between and dessert), shows you how many calories you have left (you get credit for exercise), has a water meter (have you drunk your 64 oz today?). One of the nice features is a text and smiley face feedback (not as irritating as it sounds). So you didn't make your calorie goal for today, but you got a smiley face for skipping dessert! Ate nothing but brownies! But they were high in vitamin A!

Weak points MyFoodDiary works best if you buy lots of name brand products, never cook, and eat out at chain restaurants. Of course that is the exact opposite of an effective diet strategy -- you should be shopping the outside of the supermarket -- dairy, produce, meats and cooking at home. Entering recipes is a pain -- you have to find each individual ingrediant on a list. If you know another person (like a spouse) who is using MyFoodDiary you can share recipes so that both of you don't have to enter them but there are no cookbooks included and every other user has to enter their recipes from scratch.

The quantity options are also awkward. You need to be able to enter almonds in 1 almond, cups of almonds and ounces of almonds. You need to be able to enter water in ounce, cups or milliliters. Scrambled eggs come only in large, fried eggs come only in medium.

If you are going to come back to MyFoodDiary several times a day, you may be annoyed that it boots you out to a "diary" page, rather than leaving you at the page for entering foods. If there is one thing that's a little annoying, it's that for a pretty expensive place, there's very little development going on. Over the last two year even the motivational pictures and quotes are the same.

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