fitday question

  • I was looking up different things on fitday. I looked up artificial sweetner and it says each packets has 3.5 cals. The box says each packet has 0 cals. Which one is it? At the end of the day these kind of mistakes could be why my weightloss is ssssoooooooo ssssllllloooooowwwww right now! Jelly
  • Well, if you want to make sure, enter the 3.5 cals. That way, if it's off, your overestimating what you've eaten.

    I don't think a difference like that can make or break your weight loss. Even if you were having ten or twenty packs a day, it would be less than 100 cals.

    Jay
  • Are you using the site or the software? I have the software and I usually just end up adding the item into the database myself if the numbers vary from fitday to the box
  • Quote: I looked up artificial sweetner and it says each packets has 3.5 cals. The box says each packet has 0 cals.
    I checked on FitDay and that count is for asparatame (Equal) 4 cal/1g carb. Saccharin (Sweet n Low) has 0 everything & Splenda has 0 cals & 1g carb.

    Not sure what diet plan you are following but most of them do say to watch artifical sweetener intake. Too much can cause cravings, add minimal calories/carbs & it is questionable how good they are for you. My diet plan limits them to 3 a day. HTH
  • Packets of sweetner fall into the category of foods that are less than 5 calories per "serving" so manufacturers are allowed to round down to 0 calories. They do have minimal calories and it can add up (a cup of Splenda is about 90 calories if, for example, you bake with it).

    But unless you're going nuts with the packets, relax and don't sweat it! All food labels are rounded off and calories given in Fitday are estimates. None of us are going to be able to precisely figure out exactly how many calories were consuming in a day. So long as it's a reasonable estimate, you're fine.

    And for what it's worth, I've been at this for almost seven years and have never counted the calories in sweetner.