[ennay]

I will say that one of the things I do that makes fitday A LOT easier but its not for the ummmm...anal types.

I have several common foods in my custom foods that I use whether or not that is precisely what I ate.

Like salad. I have a salad that is a combo of the most common salad ingredients I use. Lettuce, cuke, carrot, red bell pepper, tomato. And dressing. I have about 4 lowcal dressings in my fridge and I typically use ~1T, but my fitday salad specifies 2T of the highest calorie dressing.

So regardless if I have a salad with all the above and light ranch or a salad with just cucumber and light vinaigrette, its "salad with dressing" in fitday for me. If I add a high caloric topping like cheese, beans etc, then I add it separately

Same with stir-fry. I stir-fry veggies at least 2-3 times a week different combinations of non-starchy veggies. I made a "typical" stir-fry and that is what I use to record.

I am much more precise on higher calorie stuff

[SmartButt]

When adding custom foods, I have come across the "that isn't right! those calories can't come from what you specified!" warning, and it doesn't seem to let me add it as is, even though I'm putting down EXACTLY what is on the nutritional info on the package of what I'm eating.

I've learned just to keep upping the carbs/fat a little until it lets me add it using the calories it claims to have, even though it's not a 100% true reflection of the label anymore.

So yes I agree, it isn't good if you want to account for every gram of this or that. Just a good general data-collection. I find it fun as well.

[Tealeaf]

I stopped journaling my food a long time ago. I used it as a tool to learn how much I should be eating in a day, then stopped when I felt that I had acheived that. I'm working hard at building a way of life that I can maintain for the rest of my life so I never regain the weight. I don't want to journal for the rest of my life, so I stopped as soon as I felt I safely could.

I understand that many people find it a useful tool. I certainly did when I was relearning what to eat, and how much. I just wanted to submit that one doesn't neccessarily have to journal food intake to lose weight.

[jillybean720]

Count me in as a Fitday-a-holic! I use it more for planning than for tracking. I find that if I sit down first thing in the morning (or even the night before) and enter everything I plan on eating the next day, I am more likely to stick to it because I know if I eat anything differently, I'll have to go back and update it in my Fitday.

One thing I LOVE about the free version rather than the paid version is that I can access it from ANY computer. I update my Fitday whenever I need to from home, from work, from my sister's house, from just about anywhere!

I also do a lot of custom foods. If it's something I know I probably won't have very often, then like someone else mentioned, I'll use whatever Fitday has in there for that item and then just adjust the serving size until it matches the calories on the package.

Just as a note, the reason the numbers don't always add up correctly and we get the error (the one about how something must be off because that number of fat/protein/carbs does not add up to those calories) is because it is okay according ot the FDA for food manufacturers to round their numbers (i.e., if there is less than .5g trans fat, the label can say 0, etc. This is why cooking sprays like Pam say 0 calories even though the main ingredient is oil, which, of course, DOES have calories--if it has less than 5 calories per serving, they can say 0, and they can adjust the serving size to make it work out that way), so what you see on the label is often actually not 100% accurate anyway.

[ennay]

the other thing I do if its a food I know I wont have often (and there is nothing in fitday for it or fitday is way off is I have a custom food called "fat", one called "carb" and one called "protein" then I just enter that I ate the number of grams of each listed on the label