MyFoodDiary.com Builds Healthy Habits

Looking good: MyFoodDiary.com also tracks exercise and body measurements.

Is it possible to become too obsessed with numbers when trying to get fit? Absolutely. But in the case of MyFoodDiary.com, we’ve decided it’s a healthy obsession that we’re enjoying 100 percent.

After all, this online “lifestyle tool” is so much more than a way to track our calories. With more than 50,000 foods in its database, we can find nutritional information (including calories, carbs, cholesterol, fat, protein, sodium and vitamins) for virtually all of our favorites — or manually enter whatever we eat most and save it in our personal “fridge” for faster tracking later. But we can also log our exercise (enter workouts manually or consult the database of activities and calories burned), track our body measurements (including weight, inches and body-fat percentage), write in a journal and connect with like-minded people in the forums (more than 400 groups include “new moms,” “need to lose over 100 lbs” and local exercise groups).

One of our favorite aspects of the program (aside from the incredibly reasonable $9/month membership fee) is the daily report — a chart summarizing our food intake and exercise, as well as details on how many calories we can still consume to maintain or lose weight and — best of all — the highly motivating smiley faces that praise us for things like eating enough fiber, getting our vitamins and keeping our sodium and saturated-fat intakes at healthy levels. The report also gives us frowning faces if we drop below our minimum calories for the day (or go over or under in other areas). Meanwhile, a detailed report analyzes our nutrients, color-coding our strengths and weaknesses (green = good source/healthy amounts, pink/red = bad source/unhealthy amounts). We’re now on a personal mission to get nothing but smiley faces and green boxes.

As much as we love how fun and easy this tool makes fitness, we’re always looking for new ways to keep ourselves on track — so please leave a comment and let us know what’s worked for you (and how you like MFD, if you give it a try)!

Photo credit: Julie Toy

Tags: Food and drink, Food energy, food intake, health, Health/Medical/Pharmaceuticals, Hospitality/Recreation, Julie Toy, lifestyle tool, Medical education, Nutrition, Thin, USD, Vitamin