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Old 04-16-2007, 04:12 PM   #1  
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Default Need some input on calorie tracking sites

Hi Friends,

Today is my first day attempting to track my calorie consumption. I opted to use Fitday as its free, has pretty charts and so many of you like the site. However, I must confess, the site is really aggravating me! I cant find most of my foods, so I'm entering everything as a custom food. My information is coming straight off of the label, however, I keep getting errors telling me my calorie count is off..sometimes, by half the calories. Are the manufacturers lying about everything on their labels? Does anyone else have this same problem? Do you use a different site? I might want to try another site to see if it is more user friendly for me.
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Old 04-16-2007, 04:15 PM   #2  
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I use Fitday (I bought the home version) and I LOVE it. I haven't had any trouble with the foods I eat though - not sure why it is giving you such a hard time. I don't know what I would do without it.
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Old 04-16-2007, 04:45 PM   #3  
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Here is just one example.... I had 1 cup of Birds Eye Steamfresh Broccoli & Cauliflower. The nutrition label indicates Calories for serving=30...Total Carbohydrates=4, Dietary Fiber=2, Protein=1. Fitday says the calories should be 12.....looks like the site subtracts the dietary fiber.

Here is another example....1 cup of Europe's Best Frozen Berry Mix. The nutrition label indicates Calories for serving=70..Total Carbs 17, Dietary Fiber=6. Fitday says the calories should be 44.

Am I doing something wrong here? I'm not sure I understand why the dietary fiber changes the calculations. I always thought that carb and protein grams have 4 calories each and fat has 9 calories.
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Old 04-16-2007, 04:59 PM   #4  
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I like the site that rhymes with Sharkpeople. (for some reason we can't say it here). I liked Fitday too, but I enjoy the community and motivation aspects of SP. I find that anywhere you go, you will have to add your custom foods. But once you add them, you won't ever have to do it again.

For common foods (like your broccoli and cauliflower mix), see if you can find another brand already there. I find that the calories and nutritional info for stuff like that rarely varies between brands.
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Old 04-16-2007, 05:04 PM   #5  
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I also use dietfacts.com along with fitday -- if you log onto your fitday and then go to diet facts and look up your foods, most of them can then just be added over to fitday by clicking a link at the bottom of your food, because I eat a lot of green giant frozen vegetables. It is then in your fitday for good. I did find fitday annoying at first, but now that I have most of my "usuals" added in, its' not too bad.
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Old 04-16-2007, 05:06 PM   #6  
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I've never used Fitday, so I can't help you there. But I do use Calorie Count. The website is (http://www.calorie-count.com), it's free and I really enjoy it.
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Old 04-16-2007, 06:10 PM   #7  
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I'm a member of Bally's and I use their online food diary, but I find that I have to set up almost everything I eat as a custom food. I'd probably switch to Fitday (for the pretty charts) if I didn't already have so many custom foods set up on Bally's.

I also used Fitwatch.com for a while and it was the same thing there. I had to set up almost everything I ate as a custom food. It seems like none of these sites really have many of the foods I need pre-entered (although none of them gave me error messages like you are getting from Fitday).

In terms of looking up the calorie content in foods, I rely on CalorieKing.com almost exclusively. I've found them to be super reliable and the site allows me to enter the number of servings/oz/etc. and the does the math for me.
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Old 04-16-2007, 06:24 PM   #8  
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I also use calorie-count.com as well as Fitday. Calorie-count.com has a very simple recipe analyzer, that I find much easier then Fitday. At this point I know everything that I am eating and don't bother entering everything into Fitday. In the beginning it can be quite tedious. Once you enter in all your custom foods and save them, they will always be there for you.
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Old 04-16-2007, 06:31 PM   #9  
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I like thedailyplate.com
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Old 04-16-2007, 07:41 PM   #10  
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The only time I've gotten those error messages were when I messed up. That's not the case here though - you entered everything correctly! I also use calorie-count and Sparkspeople but since I started with FitDay and all of my regular foods are already set up in there I tend to gravitate back to FitDay.
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Old 04-16-2007, 07:50 PM   #11  
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On food packages, the fiber gram count is included in the carb gram count. I've never had the problem you've encountered except when I made a typo.

Carbohydrate grams DO have 4 calories a piece...except if those grams are fiber. If they are, they have no calories, as we can't digest the fiber. So total carbohydrate calories can be calculated off of your food packages as follows:
(carb g - fiber g) x 4.
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Old 04-16-2007, 08:12 PM   #12  
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Thanks to Everyone for your responses...and thank you, Mandalinn, for explaining the dietary fiber. This is yet another reason for me to keep track on one of these sites...the manufacturer's information actually overstated the dietary calories on those products!

Tracking calories today has sure been an eye opener. I'm actually having a hard time consuming more than 1200 calories today. Wow...who would have thought!
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Old 04-16-2007, 09:32 PM   #13  
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Girlygirlsebas -- I took a break for a few weeks, so I missed when your new picture came on -- it's very nice
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Old 04-17-2007, 07:53 AM   #14  
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Thank you, Shelby897! That picture makes me smile as it was taken on our anniversary trip...hubby is in the picture, too, but he wouldnt let me include him on this site....kinda shy I guess.
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Old 04-17-2007, 11:57 AM   #15  
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I use The Daily Plate, simply because I was VERY tired of entering in custom foods on Fitday. If they don't have a food you're eating listed, if you add it in, you add it to their database, so now EVERYONE can benefit from it, unlike on Fitday where it's just in your personal database. Occasionally you have to be careful because someone entered in something that looks WAY off (like saying that a certain piece of fruit has ZERO carbs...). That being said, I enter all of my nutritional data totals into Fitday (I make my total counts a custom food) just so I can get the pie chart. It seems all sites have their downsides, so that's why I unfortunately have to use multiple ones.
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