I just joined tonight and am excited to hopefully find a supportive, informative forum for weightloss! At night is when I tend to eat things I shouldn't which I'm sure happens to a lot of you! So I'm hoping I can come on here and type instead of eat.

I've tried starting a journal tracking calories, mood, exercise, etc...but I couldn't never get it to flow well.

Please give me ideas to organize a journal, whether on my computer or in a notebook, to track my intake!

Also, I am looking to lose 20-25 pounds so what are the names of threads I should start looking at first. There are so many I don't know where to start! Haha!

Thanks so much, Short1

Hey there &
So glad you found this site I've found it to be very upbeat & supportive. I don't know too much about journals of the sort, but I know a lot of people use sites like fitday.com to help them track things. Apparently it's free, and you might find it useful.

There is a general Weight Loss Support Forum area that you may want to give a look at Then there are many groups, so you possibly want to take a quick stop in each one and read what they're about (they have stickies above that most groups have made a brief description about the people in the group).

And post wherever you're comfortable! Best of luck!

welcome short1!!

I use a website called fitday www.fitday.com while others use www.thedailyplate.com both have ways to record your daily food, exercise among other things. It's been easier for me to use a webiste than physically write things out.

all the best

Hi and welcome!

I find journalling to be an excellent way to keep me on track and accountable. I keep a small notebook and devote a two page spread to each day. The first page is an account of what I've eaten for the day and a calorie total, and the second is dedicated to my progress towards daily goals. I find if I set daily goals then I don't focus on the scale so much. I wrote 10 goals to strive for daily in the front of the book (things like number of calories to eat, amount of exercise, amount of water, making healthier choices , not eating after 7:30pm, etc.) and at night I write down which ones I kept. Even if the scale isn't agreeing, it really motivates me when I manage to meet all 10 of my goals in a given day.

Good luck!

Hi, and welcome. I keep a food diary at Dailyplate.com. It works like a search engine, for instance, if you have Eggo waffles, you'd type 'Eggo waffles' into the search engine and look for the one that matches what you ate. Just, be sure to check that you select the correct variety, calories per serving, etc; TDP is peer edited, so several results may show up for one specific food, and you'll need to find the one that matches whatever the label on your food says.

You'll be able to enter how many portions of that certain food you ate, and select when you ate it (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, evening snack, midnight snack - that last one should be a big no-no!). It tallies up your calories, fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbs, fiber, and sugars, AND it will show you a representation of an actual Nutrition Info label, so that you can see what vitamins/minerals you're getting as well.

It works very well for me, but that's partially because I have an online desk job, so every time I eat, it's usually at my desk, and before I take a bite of anything, I'll look it up on the Daily Plate and add it to my log. If you eat more or less than you thought you were going to, it's easy to go back in and edit your portion size.

You can choose to fill out a profile to target your calorie goals, but my suspicion is that they're too liberal in how many calories they claim certain people can have per day (for instance, I'm 6'1 and currently weigh 368 lbs. I don't have a very active lifestyle, but it's not completely sedentary either. If I input my age, weight, height, gender, and set my activity level as completely sedentary, it says I can have 2,800 calories a day to lose 2 lbs a week, and I just don't believe that's correct at all).

So you can ignore that part, if you want. Or, if you try it out and their projected calorie goals for your height and weight are accurate, even better. As a food journal, though, I think it's terrific. They have a HUGE selection of foods, you're very rarely going to encounter a food that isn't in their database.

I really appreciate the comments from Mamabear and Katheryne because i am going to incorporate both of your ideas into one, and hopefully other people will give me ideas too! I like the idea of having goals on the first page so that there are constant reminders that you look at everyday to keep you focused. I hope that will help with my lack of motivation! Good idea for breaking it up by meals and snacks. I think anything I put it in there it will help me better visualize what I am eating daily.

Thanks Faerie, Valpal and Miss Alex for the two websites, all three of you only mentioned those ones so they must be the best you've found so far! I will have to check them out and get signed up to see which one works better for me.

I hope people continue to give me tips on more to add in to my journal because so far I have enough to get going!

Good luck everyone!

Hmmmm well the following, which is what I oughta be doing actually so thankyou for the kick up rear end , tends to be lovely and effective and *work*-

1. Get a good quality notebook that you like and can carry around with you
2. Decorate it with positive imagees of things that make you happy/smile/inspire you...so for instance, an inspirational picture of a weightloss success, a few cartoons, photos of loved ones, a quote ortwo
3. O the nside cover, write own exctly what your goals are and th basic steps you plan to take to achieve them
4. Make a committment to wrie in the journal every day - I dont weigh myself,but you could make a form that you print off for each day, that hs columns like Weight, Calories Eaten, ExerciseTaken, Feelings, and Other Comments...might giveyou some structure

Everytime you have a victory of any kind, write howgreat youare, in BIG LETTERS!!
And any slipups, write down what you've learnt from them and how to best avoid them in future

Emily
xxxxx

Wow! I joined fitday this morning and found it fairly easy to get started, some of the foods I was adding weren't exactly right, so I may have to make custom ones from the nutrient labels of what I use at home.

I think this may be the best thing I am going to do for myself and progressing in my weight loss efforts. Up until now I've never actually tracked my kcals, fat, carbs, protein, and other nutrients. I think this will be great for me to see what I am lacking and help me know what I need to change!

I AM SO EXCITED! LOL

short1

So I started using fitday.com for about a week now and I like it alot! I recommend this to others who are looking for a fairly simple way to track what you eat and break it up into cals,fat,protein,carbs!

It makes me feel grossed out to see how much of my diet is fat! Time to start working on that, and thanks to fitday I was able to REALLY see what is going into my mouth.

i made my own excel spreadsheet
that way i can customize it to my needs
(low carb/high protien, vegetarian, calorie counting, and Weight Watcher points)

its not hi tech but i know filling it out helps me understand what excatly in my lifestyle (aka. diet) that helps me loose weight

i have come to realize that i can still eat what i want, i just need to control portions and make smarter subsituties sometimes
i love combining "dieting" and numbers, so the math side of food appeals to me
plus i am more knowledgable about food, which i think everyone should take more concern in (ie. reading labels, preserved foods, etc)

I've found I absolutely cannot keep an online diary of my food intake and exercise. I'll start it, but eventually stop updating it. I carry a little notebook around in my purse. Here's what a page looks like:

Wed. - 1/2/08

B
Cereal w/ 2% Milk 350/6
Banana 110/0
Yogurt 60/3

L
Tofurky Sandwich 240/4
Orange 90/0
Baby Carrots 30/0

S
Wheat Thins 130/4

D
Burittos w/ Cheese 620/11
Mango 100/0.5

TOTAL 1730/28.5

Water - 120oz

Cardio - 20min
Strength - Weights (1 set of 10 each)

The letters stand for meals (B= breakfast, S=snack). I track calories and fat grams. The first number is calories and the second is fat grams. I try to stay under 1800 calories and under 50 fat grams each day. That's just a personal thing for me, though. You may be different.

As you can see, it's my food and exercise diary together. Each night, I try to write down everything I plan to eat the next day. This way I remember to eat only what I planned for in the menu. Writing it down beforehand helps keep me on track. If I don't do it, then I have to go in and scribble it out or add in things. It makes it look not-so-pretty, and that little bit keeps me for deviating too much.

One of my big problems was missing a day of journaling and then eventually slipping into not journaling for several days in a row. For me, if I don't journal, then I don't lose weight. Journaling is the only thing that makes me stick with my food plan. So, try not to miss a day. Write down everything you eat, never leave anything out. If you leave it out, then you'll start leaving out more things and some of those things could be bad for you (like chocolate cake). ;-) My problem with many of the online food diary options is that I can never find what I ate in their library. That means I have to enter it in and save it and all that junk. Plus, if it is online, I have to be near a computer with internet access to log what I eat or make changes to my daily menu. If I don't record what I eat right away, then I'll forget the calories or fat gram.