Happy new year to all of you!
Though today is the first day of 2013, I’ve been thinking about my intention for this year since before Christmas. Part of my journey to Nourish myself is to become healthier. I’m dieting or going on a cleanse. I’m changing my habits to create a healthier lifestyle.
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| My dashboard. It’s 10PM and I still have calories left to eat! |
This past weekend, I downloaded the MyFitnesPal app to my Galaxy S2 phone. Many people have recommended it to me, but the idea of tracking everything I ate didn’t appeal to me back then. Chatting with my friend Jenn, I learned that she’s been using the app for a while and liked it. Then, being the awesome friend she is, she learned that MyFitnessPal can be synced with my FitBit. That sealed the deal for me.
What exactly does MyFitnessPal do? The free service is accessible directly on their website or their app, which is available for most major mobile platforms (iOS, Android, WindowsPhone, Blackberry). Once you create an account, you tell them your weight, height, activity level, and your desired new weight. Based on that information, MyFitnessPal will give you suggested calorie guidelines hit your weight goal. You can choose how fast you want to lose your weight. For me, MyFitnessPal recommended one pound a week. That sounded reasonable to me.
Once you’ve submitted your basic info, you log in everything you eat. Yes, everything. I was really good about logging my food when I started using my FitBit but then it got old, fast. So far, I’m very pleased with MyFitnessPal’s food database. The app will even scan your food’s bar code to pull up nutritional information! I’ve scanned everything from Trader Joe’s shredded cheese to my New Year’s Eve champagne, and the app has found them.
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| This is my lunch for tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it! |
Today I made a ham, cheese, and broccoli frittata for dinner. I entered my ingredients into the My Recipes section of MyFitnessPal and it calculated the calories and nutritional info for me. Best of all, the recipe is saved to my account so when I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, I won’t have to re-enter the info. I did all this from my desktop because I can type much faster on my keyboard.
Besides eating healthy foods and small portions, I am incorporating more exercise into my week. Sunday I started slow with a little yoga and two songs on my Zumba Fitness game. I just log my workout and the duration so MyFitnessPal calculates how many calories I burned. They didn’t have Zumba in the database, just aerobic dancing, so I used an online calculator for calories burned during Zumba.
Now how does this all fit in with my FitBit Ultra device? MyFitnessPal syncs with my FitBit’s stats: steps taken, calories burned, level of activity, etc. This way I only have to worry about logging my food and the start time and duration of my workouts. You can also sync other apps and devices to your account too.
So far I’m off to a good start. I remind myself that small steps are what creates a lifestyle change. My workout on Sunday felt great but then the next day I felt like crap because I was still sick. That wasn’t very smart of me. I can’t seem to shake this cold and cough. I think it’s partly because I’m not taking it easy. As soon as I feel a teeny bit better, I start doing too much again. So I probably won’t do anything more intense than yoga this week. Not until I’m at 100%.
Are you taking steps towards a healthier lifestyle? What apps or devices are you using to help?
MyFitnessPal is a free to use, however, their app does have banner ads. I like what they offer so that doesn’t bother me. There is also a forum on their website and you can add friends so you can share your progress with them. You can also connect the app to your Facebook or Twitter account to share progress reports.
No compensation was received for this review. This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.