I've been religiously counting my calories for the past couple of months, but I'm starting to get frustrated with the tools I am using.

I was using "My Diet" associated with Facebook and I found it too slow.

This month I switched over to Calorie Counter (About.com), but the website seems so slow to me.

It is taking me TOO LONG to record what I eat. The websites are lagging on me.

I don't want to get so frustrated with this I stop. Does anyone have suggestions for a faster online tool or even calorie counting software?

what kind of phone do you have? blackberries and iphones have apps. I would highly recommend something that stores your favorites and allows you to store recipies. I use loseit which does all of these things and I literally spend 2 minutes planning my day each morning. I have a general idea of what I'm going to do for my main meals for the week when I do my weekly shopping then I fill in the rest with fruits, veggies and snacks. FitDay, Daily Plate and sparkpeople are all good options.

sparkpeople.com

They have an app as well but I've never used it.

It's simple and the best part is you can save stuff you eat a lot on a favorites list And you can "copy" meals to other days- I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast M-F so that helps me

Fitday is my favorite PC based calculator... if you have an iPhone or touch I highly recommend LoseIt! It's very fast!

I have tried A LOT of calorie counting sites. I find sparkpeople to be the fast. Adding a food opens a new windows that shows text only. As you add food it refresh the page behind it. The only weird thing is more fresh fruit and veggies require an S on them to show up properly. Oranges, Apples, Onions, etc.

I can enter a days worth of food in 5 min max.

They have an app too for phones, but its slower.

I love the idea of calorie count, but it is so slow and such a pain to add a food. Seriously, try sparkpeople. It's not my fav site, but it is FAST!

Calorie Count can seem slow, but once you get items tagged, it takes no time. Granted, I enter in my food as the day goes on, but I can do an entire day in five minutes or less.

I haven't tried it yet but a friend of mine swears by livestrong.com

I use My Fitness Pal and I really like it. Like a lot of the other sites, it allows you to keep your favorites/most used foods up and recent for easy adding. You can copy meals and/or name meals so that everything is there for you. It also will track water intake and exercise done. Quick and easy and it has a lot of the local generic supermarket brands of foods for my local supermarket, so that's very helpful too!!!

I use Fitday. At first, it can take a while to search for things and input custom foods but after using it for a while, almost everything I eat is already listed in my recent foods list and all I have to do it click on it to enter it for that day. You can check off a whole bunch of stuff at one time and enter it all together. Since I tend to eat the same things over and over, I can input my entire day in a couple of minutes. I also like seeing the percentages of fat/carb/protein. I don't have specific targets for those, but it helps me to see if anything is too far out of balance.

I used Fitday online until I finally bought their offline version. It is SO much better!
You can custom add an entire recipe and then add only one serving of it to your day.
I absolutely love it and I've tried Sparkpeople too, fitday offline is the best.

Another for Fitday PC.

A.

I use a small notepad, a pen, and a calculator/algebra. I have a list in the back of my notebook with calorie counts for homemade foods currently in my fridge/freezer. I weigh all my food on a nutritional scale that gives me calorie counts for whole foods (fruit, veg, meat, grains, etc.) and let's me accurately measure portions of pre-packaged items (like a serving size of cereal).

All in all, I probably spend no more than 5 minutes recording my calories and getting a total in any given day. I haven't found a computer program that is any more efficient than that.

I use calorie count from about.com, I find for me its the easiest as I like the set up AND the simple likie...three clicks to add a tagged meal is a major plus for someone like myself who eats the SAME THING for breakfast and lunch.

However, I do use the spark people recipe calculator if I'm making a batch of something and then use those numbers as a "custom" in CC.

Overall, I'm not a big fan of spark people, I just never got into that one because CC seemed to have a wider coverage of the things I eat normally.

I use LoseIt on my iTouch. It takes maybe 30 seconds for every meal, and you don't have to be online because the database is stored in the device. If you repeat the same things -- I eat the same breakfast every day, and often the same lunch during a week --- there is a one step process for "add previous meal." It also tracks nutrients.

If you are looking for a weight loss reward for yourself, you might consider a digital/portable device like a Blackberry, iPhone or iTouch. My iTouch has been totally worth its weight in gold for my weight loss -- I never had any success with calorie counting before. In addition to the LoseIt app I use it for music and video while I am exercising, an exercise tracker, and for keeping my shopping list on. (And other non-weight loss stuff too.) The iTouch is much cheaper than the iPhone; you can get them new for $199 now, and you don't need to get any contract.

I don't have a fancy phone -- mine just makes calls -- but I think there are calorie tracking apps for those too.

I just write everything down in a really nice journal thing! i tired using the online stuff.. i just didnt stick to it!