I'm not new to 3fc, I'm actually a founding member of the 280s Ladies thread and I have to say, I love 3FC. I'm not working on losing much weight right now, since I am six months pregnant, but I am working on developing new habits so I can work on weight loss after my little man gets here in January. I have started drinking 64 oz of water a day, changed from high fat meats to lean and very lean protein and added lots of new veggies to my diet. I also do some exercise, just some light walking since my tummy his over my feet and I have no balance right now (perks of pregnancy lol!). I am also wanting to start tracking my exercise and calorie intake to make sure I am consuming and burning enough calories.
I am wondering if anyone knows or uses a free calorie counting site that would help me with tracking my food intake and exercise?
Also, if anyone wants to share how they have lost their weight, any goals you made or lifestyle changes, I would love to hear them.
When I first started I used Fitday dot com (writing it out b/c for some reason another reply that was here got edited). Now I use myplate, which is part of livestrong dot com. I find it has more packaged foods on it, and I think it is easier to use. I do miss certain things about fitday and still log in every so often to check something (for example, it has better counts for both raw and cooked food).
I think myplate overcounts calorie burn for some exercise (like running) so I enter my exercise manually based on my HRM (which I take with a grain of salt as well).
I haven't lost a whole lot of weight so I don't want to go around barking about it -- but part of what works for me is making food I genuinely love. I could eat a lame old salad with lame old bottled dressing every day, but instead I take the time/effort to make it really good -- might be by adding grilled chicken or salmon, or some fruit, or some goat cheese, or making my own dressing. When I make a turkey sandwich I dig through the fridge for good toppings -- arugula instead of plain lettuce, or maybe some red onion. Anything to make my meals a little extra-tasty and a little beyond plain. I search online for yummy dinner recipes that my DH will love even though they are low-calorie (he is very thin so I add extra sides for him). Just the other night I made MooShu Pork that was as good as takeout and only 370 calories.
Another key is joining a gym with great childcare! I always feel so much better after a workout and a shower and a little time away from the needy people.
High five to you for exercising while you're pregnant. I think if you do that, the weight comes off more quickly afterward. I swam sloooow laps with a kickboard when I was pregnant with DD#1, right up until the day before I went into labor, and most of the weight just fell off right after -- I think because I was being good to my body. Breastfeeding is a big help, too!
I love sparkpeople.com easy to use and I can always add stuff to it. And I like if I go over to sparkrecipes.com and enter my recipes OR use someone else's I can import it into my sparkpeople
What I have found works best for me is wearing my Body Media GoWear Fit armband. This armband measures all of the activity I do all day long, because we don't just burn calories when we workout, we burn them doiung everyday things, and just by living. This device measures the caloric expenditure every day, and I record my foods (on a very user friendly interface) . At the end of the day, the goal is to have a certain calorie defict, more burned than consumed. The amount of the deficit depends on how much weight you want to lose and how fast, within normal healthy ranges of course.
That has been the best thing for me, it measures things like calories used, steps, amount of vigorous and moderate activity, and even sleep patterns. It is so fun so see the activity measure at the end of the day!
I like fitday because it has a lot more user control than other sites and I can monitor my sodium and cholesterol intake, as well as vitamins which is pretty important to me.
I'm not working on losing much weight right now, since I am six months pregnant, but I am working on developing new habits so I can work on weight loss after my little man gets here in January. I have started drinking 64 oz of water a day, changed from high fat meats to lean and very lean protein and added lots of new veggies to my diet. I also do some exercise, just some light walking since my tummy his over my feet and I have no balance right now (perks of pregnancy lol!). I am also wanting to start tracking my exercise and calorie intake to make sure I am consuming and burning enough calories.
GOOD FOR YOU!!! That is awesome that you are eating your veggies and trying to get into good habits now... I didn't do very good while I was PG with my son. And then after he was born, it took me a year to get back on track.
While I was PG, I bought Dream Dinners cookbook (I call it my bible) I made like 20 recipes and froze them so they would be ready after Logan came along. Best thing I did. It took me like two full days to prep all those recipes, but they lasted a while and were GREAT to have on hand. (IF you scroll down on the page, there is a link with corrected recipes - you don't even need to get the cookbook)
Really - anything that you can prep and freeze now will be very helpful later!
Oh... and I used sparkpeople.com for a while to track calories.
I started using SparkPeople about two weeks ago and really like it. It has all the nutritional data analysis for each day and over a week or more, as well a a pretty good exercise data base with video tutors. I've learned a lot from it already!
Anyone know of a good calorie counting site?
for exercising while you're pregnant. I think if you do that, the weight comes off more quickly afterward. I swam sloooow laps with a kickboard when I was pregnant with DD#1, right up until the day before I went into labor, and most of the weight just fell off right after -- I think because I was being good to my body. Breastfeeding is a big help, too!
And then after he was born, it took me a year to get back on track. 
